Baptism. Something that I didn’t think about doing until a few years ago. For a long time I felt like it was something I needed to FEEL the need or want to do it, and in that the Lord has perfect timing.
July 21st 2015 I decided to get baptized, I decided that from that point on, I wanted to FULLY commit myself to following the Lord with all my heart and mind. I wanted to obey the Lord by letting him wash me of my past to start a new life.
It was the moment that I was brought out of a dead life and brought into a full life.
I read about the death of Lazarus the other day in the Bible (John 11:1-44) and to me, it really represented how Jesus is more than willing to bring us back to life.
The beginning of the chapter talks about how Martha and Mary (Lazarus’ sisters) are asking Jesus to come to their brother because he was sick.
In verse 3 it says “So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”
the one you love
He loves us before we even know him. A few years ago I was sick. I was living life in sin, feeling completely empty and depressed.
Jesus was fully man and fully God, he feels human emotion. After Lazarus had died, Mary was weeping at Jesus’ feet. It says at the end of verse 33 “he [Jesus] was deeply moved in spirit and troubled” … it pains him to see us in pain. He cares so much!! His love is far deeper, wider and higher than any love we could experience on earth.
And I don’t know about you but I choose that. I choose to chase after a King who loves me beyond words. I choose to glorify a King who loves me so much he would die for me. A death that will lead me to a better life.
Being baptized is just a reminder of what He did for us. Jesus died on the cross, then was raised to live a new life, just like we are to leave our old lives behind and become new in him.
In a way we are raised to life.
From that moment on it doesn’t get easy. Sometimes life gets harder, but you now have a companion, a friend, a Father to go through life with. The mornings of quiet time here has given me time to reflect on all that God has brought me out of and the new life I have in him.
“so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lords holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurable more than all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us.” Ephesians 3:17-20
