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Summary

In this episode, the discussion centers on the deep, transformative work of God as He separates the chaff from the wheat within us — revealing the purity of His nature. Through loving discipline, repentance, and the baptism of fire, God removes the old human nature that obscures His divine life. The family share personal revelations and scriptural insights showing that what seems like suffering or correction is actually the Father’s loving process of making us into His sons. As the wheat is flailed to separate the chaff, so are we refined to reflect Christ in fullness.

Show Notes

• The chaff and wheat both represent parts of us — not the world versus the believer. • God uses fire, pressure, and suffering to remove the old nature. • Christ Himself was perfected through obedience and suffering (Hebrews 5:8–9). • The baptism of fire is a divine process of purification that leads to sonship. • True transformation happens through repentance, humility, and a contrite heart. • Every believer is under God’s hand of preparation — even before salvation. • Through ongoing repentance and surrender, the Holy Spirit can flow freely in and through us, just as it did in Christ. Application: • Submit to God’s dealings without resistance. • Maintain a daily heart of repentance and humility. • Recognize that suffering is not punishment but divine shaping. • Allow the Holy Spirit to remove all that hides the fullness of Christ in you.

Quotes

• “The chaff and the wheat are us together — our old nature growing up with our new.” — Debbie • “He has to flail us. He has to beat it out of us. It sounds negative, but it’s a loving thing.” — Debbie • “The Lord wants a sweet bread — He wants us to reflect Him.” — Ed • “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” — Ken • “Christ suffered, and through that suffering, His obedience was made complete.” — Ron • “Repentance and a broken spirit are the key to becoming pure channels of God’s life.” — Mike • “All we can do is open up our hearts. God’s got to do the rest.” — Debbie • “Christ learned obedience through the things which He suffered — that’s how the chaff is removed.” — Ken

Scriptural References

• Matthew 3:11 – He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. • Hebrews 5:8–9 – Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered. • Psalm 51:10,17 – Create in me a clean heart, O God... a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. • John 5:19 – The Son can do nothing of Himself, but only what He sees the Father doing. • Ephesians 1:3–4 – He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. • 1 John 3:2 – When He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. • Romans 8:29 – For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.

Takeaway

The process of becoming wheat in the Master’s hands is not about punishment — it’s about love. God’s flail and fire are not meant to destroy but to purify. As we submit to His dealings with humility and repentance, He removes the chaff — the old nature — and reveals the pure wheat of His divine nature within us. Christ Himself walked this path of obedience and suffering, showing us the pattern of sonship. Our transformation is not by our own effort, but by surrendering to His work — allowing His Spirit to make us vessels through which His life flows continually.  

Debbie: I didn’t realize that the chaff was part of the wheat. That was a revelation to me — that the chaff was part of the wheat, and that we were the people He was talking about, not the world. I always felt like when I was being taught in the church that the chaff was the world and that I was the wheat. But I didn’t realize that the chaff and the wheat are us together, which makes sense because our old nature grows up with us.

We grew up with that old nature, and then the Lord has to remove it. And how does He remove it? He has to flail us. He has to beat it out of us. It sounds like a negative thing, but actually, it’s a loving thing. God cannot stand in the presence of the human nature, and so He has to get rid of it. He loves us so much that He wants to make sure it is gotten rid of so that He can have that pure wheat.

It takes pressure, it takes beating, it takes a flailing in order for the chaff to be separated so the chaff can be gotten rid of — and then the perfect thing, the wheat, remains.

Ed: The Lord wants a sweet bread. He wants us to reflect Him.

Ken: I think we’re beginning to understand why, when John baptized Jesus in the River Jordan, he said, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” God is dealing with this old nature, which is the chaff that’s covering over the things that God really wants to see us loosed from.

It’s so significant when we look back at our lives as we’ve walked with God — we have experienced difficulties and things that have absolutely been a cross to us, absolutely burned off a lot of things. And after it was done, you realized you weren’t the same person. Something had happened during that process, and it took care of the chaff — maybe in a partial area — but it did take care of something in your old nature that had to be dealt with.

Ron: Consider this: Christ suffered, and through that suffering, His obedience was made complete. That was done before the River Jordan. Just consider this — He came to a point in the Lord where God had brought His spirit to perfection, to a place where He could fill Him.

And the reason I think that is because when He was baptized by John in the River Jordan, the Father spoke, “This is My Son, in whom I’m well pleased.” Christ had come to a place through the discipline, just like we have to go through this flailing. I’m sure He got it just like we do from the Father. But He came to a place of perfection in His spirit — to the same kind of work that we have to come to.

When that happened at the River Jordan, He was filled to overflowing — a place where there was no limit to the Holy Spirit in Him. It just continued to flow through Him, and because He had that power in Him, He was able to go out into the wilderness, where He was facing Satan, (right!) And He was able to overcome him because He had gone through the discipline.

He went through the flailing. He came to a point of perfection in His spirit. Then the Lord poured out the Holy Spirit on Him without measure, and He was able to go in the power of the Holy Spirit and overcome Satan in the wilderness, and come back in that same power.

It wasn’t measured. It was like a continual outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Him — 24/7, never stopping. It wasn’t just an experience; it was 24/7. That’s why He could hear the Father. That’s why He could do all those things that He saw the Father do. Everything that He did, He didn’t do of Himself.

He even said it: “I don’t do anything of Myself. I do only what I see the Father do.” How did He do that? Because He didn't do it — it was the Holy Spirit being poured out on Him 24/7.

I know it’s a process. It was a process for Christ, and it’s a process for us.

Mike: Becoming pure channels — this thing of a constant awareness of repentance before the Lord. And I don’t think we fully understand the meaning of that word repentance, broken spirit, and how important it is, because I really sense that is one of the major keys that we must experience this on a daily basis.

Keeping this spirit of humility, because this is who Christ was — was the spirit of humility and a contrite heart. If we can learn to do the same, then we’re able to come into the presence of the Father — being able to draw from both the Father and the Son and appropriate whatever we need.

Read Psalm 51. That’s a good one to read.

Debbie: All we can do is open up our spirits and open up our hearts. God’s got to do the rest. There’s nothing that we can do. I can’t do anything to remove the chaff from me — only God can.

As I open up my heart and submit to Him, and I repent before Him and become a broken and contrite heart before Him, God is able to come in with that flail, and get the chaff off of me. It doesn’t have to be a long process. All we can do is just submit to the Lord. All I can do is just be broken in contrite heart before Him.

Ken: Christ learned obedience through the things which He suffered. I think the suffering is where the chaff is removed, because Christ is the Pattern Son. He is the one who came to be the issue of us coming into a relationship with the Father.

I think as we submit our hearts and repent — repentance is a big deal — because if you’ve suffered and you’ve had your own way of life and thinking and attitude, then the Lord shows you that you’ve been wrong.

There’s a level of repentance that you enter into, and I think you could call that suffering, because I don’t think any of us like it. I don’t like to be wrong — but the truth is, we're not. If we can hear that Word, humble ourselves before the Lord, and allow that suffering of being wrong or not being quite right on — that’s really important because that’s the way we’re going to change.

Because when we see Him, we’re going to be like Him — that’s what the Word says. I think there has to be a thing of seeing the Lord, and that happens only as we follow the pattern. It didn’t all happen at once. Everything is part of the conditioning that we have as we’ve walked along with the Lord and went through different experiences.

And I think a lot of those experiences are what we would call the sufferings of Christ, because those were things I wouldn’t have chosen.

Ron: I personally believe that you had a calling from God when you came out of the womb — before that, really. God’s been dealing with you before you even called yourself a Christian. All your whole life — through your baby stage, adolescence, all the way up until you, quote, had your salvation experience — you were already under His dealings. In fact, those dealings brought you to the salvation experience.

Ken: We have been being perfected as we’ve walked along with God — through all the circumstances, things we went through — and that’s going to happen with any believer. It’s been God who’s been changing us through the fire we’ve been going through, through the obedience we’ve suffered.

Is there more to come? Yes. But I think God has established something in our spirits — a level of faith that has been developed by God through all the things we’ve gone through.

I think anyone who walks with God and really has this revelation of just wanting to love the Lord and be with Him — He will change. We have everything already in our spirits that we need to go into this new day, whatever that new day is.

It’s there because that’s what He says in His Word. Ephesians chapter 1 says we’ve been given everything. Why don’t we have it? We have it, yes, but we’re not walking in it a hundred percent because the chaff is still hiding some of that. It’s still holding us back in that one area or those areas that are there.

We’re growing and becoming. Now, can that happen in a moment and it ends? Absolutely — it can.

Debbie: I’m trusting You that You’re going to bring that which I need to become Your son fully and completely, and able to function in the Holy Spirit. In the meantime, I’m praying, I’m blessing, I’m doing the things that the Lord has set before me to do.