Daily devotion – after baptism!
After Baptism then what?
Romans 6: 1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?
Shall we live out sinful lives knowing that God’s grace is available, is abundant? Is that what we are to do? – NO!
3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Our old lives are over along with our old ways.
We are now new creations in Christ – 2 Cor 5:17 – now!
We are now to walk in this new relationship with God in obedience to His will and His Word.
During operation Desert Storm, a significant number of soldiers gave their lives to Jesus Christ, then asked if they could be baptized.
The army chaplain used a coffin and filled it with water, it was a potent and perfect symbol of the death, burial and resurrection of which baptism is a picture.
Paul is telling us that when we were baptized, we received a new identification.
We are dead to the old life and now we are proclaiming our dedication to our Lord Jesus Christ.
The mode of baptism in the early Church was immersion – just as had our service Sunday afternoon at Palm Beach Rockingham. Those being baptized were laid completely under the ocean waters and then raised back up.
It’s a picture of death, burial and resurrection.
Their immersion was a picture of what the Holy Spirit did: the Holy Spirit identified them with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection!
5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,
Jesus’ resurrection gives us the power to live this new life.
We are born again.
6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.
Done away ….destroyed
We used to be under the power and lead of our flesh and Satan – but no more!
We are now free, and we have the power of the Holy Spirit residing in us to help us and guide us.
We don’t serve sin anymore.
When Jesus Christ died on the cross some 2,000 years ago, something amazing happened, my old sin nature was crucified with Him.
Leaving the waters of baptism, now the believer walks in this blessed ‘newness of life’!
God will enable us to live now free from our old habits and He gives us the power to say no to sin and temptation, and yes to pleasing God.