Monday, January 18, 2016

Devotion January 18, 2016



Monday: “The nations will see your vindication, and all kings your glory; you will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow” (Isaiah 62:2; NIV).

            Life-changing! I hate it when advertisers claim that something is life-changing. There are really very few life-changing events. Catastrophic loss can change your life. Marriage (an image that Isaiah uses in this very chapter) changes your life. The birth of your children, too. If we describe every new gizmo or treatment as life-changing, we take away from those moments that really are, well, life-changing.
            You know what is truly life-changing? Your baptism into Christ. In baptism, the Bible tells us that we die and rise with Christ, that our very nature is changed, that we become a new creation. Or, to use the language of the verse above, in Baptism we receive a new name, we become members of a new family, we are adopted as God’s children.
            I have performed a lot of Baptisms over the years, and each one is a beautiful things. But I do wonder sometimes. When we see an infant baptized, when we ponder our own Baptism—do we really see the life-changing nature of the event?

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