2004-08-13
Good Morning Faithful Ones,
As part of preparation for worship, mankind needs a way to prepare his body and his heart. In our Christian communities, this is often referred to as a transition from our everyday life with its focus on external things to our worship life with its focus on God. I’ve often heard it described: one must quiet himself inwardly, so he can hear God communicating with him. In the past, the Lord has led me to write about baptism as a cleansing ritual that has it origin with the “mikveh” [ritual bath] that Jewish people took just before they entered the ancient temple. Physical evidence still remains today of these mikvot [plural for mikveh]. Of course, there was also ritual bathing done by the priests inside the temple, cleansing that was done by them in the laver in the courtyard of the temple [EX 30: 17-21]. This ritual cleansing physically cleaned the person out of respect for God and was supposed to spiritually preparing him to be in God’s house. Even today, Orthodox Jews in big cities visit the mikveh at certain times as a part of their preparation for worship. Repeatedly, we who believe in both the OT and the NT have seen that things going on in the OT foreshadow something in the NT. Ritual cleansing of the sort that went on in the mikveh is one more example of this.
This brings us to exactly what this ritual cleansing in ancient times was foreshadowing, baptism. Before becoming a Messianic Jew [one who recognizes that Christ is the Messiah and is thus, a “completed Jew”], I had no idea that there are two kinds of baptism, water and Spirit. It wasn’t until I read about John the Baptist, who was sent “as a voice who cried out, ‘Prepare a way in the wilderness, a road for the Lord!,’” did I fully understand the meaning of IS 40: 3a. MAL 3: 1 was clarified too. “The Lord Almighty answered, ‘I will send My messenger to prepare the way for Me. Then the Lord you are looking for will suddenly come to His temple. The messenger you long to see will come and proclaim My covenant.” When one reads the NT and comes to faith in it, so much of what one has read in the OT has a new perspective. I believe it is the one God intends for His children to have. At last, my reading of JN 1: 6-9 made sense. “God sent His messenger, a man named John [the Baptist], who came to tell people about the Light, so that all should hear the message and believe. He himself was not the light; he came tell about the Light. This was the real Light-the Light that comes into the world and shines on all mankind.” JN 1: 17-18 brought further illumination. “God gave the Law through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The only Son, Who is the same as God and is at the Father’s side, He has made Him known.”
Those who have read the NT, particularly the book of John, know that John the Baptist had been baptizing people before Christ’s arrival on the scene. This is water baptism [as opposed to Spirit baptism] and John makes this clear in JN 1: 26. This humble man states categorically that he is “not good enough even to untie His [Christ’s] sandals.” So the question arises: What is the meaning of water baptism? The answer lies in the real meaning of the word, baptism from the Greek. It denotes “to be identified with,” and in this case to be identified with one’s heartfelt commitment to repent. That’s only half of what needs to be done for true salvation and eternal forgiveness. The rest comes to us by Spirit baptism, which is beautifully described in John the Baptist’s testimony of JN 1: 32-34 of Christ’s baptism. “And John gave this testimony: ‘I saw the Spirit come down like dove from heaven and stay on Him. I still did not know that He was the One, but God, Who sent me to baptize with water, had said to me, ‘You will see the Spirit come down and stay on a Man; He is the One Who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen it,” said John, “and I tell you that He is the Son of God.” It is through the Holy Spirit that any person comes to faith. So, we must have both water and Spirit baptism; to have the life-giving blessing of salvation, we must both repent and come to faith in Christ. That’s why Christ Himself has said in JN 14: 6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one goes to the Father except by Me.”
The old confusion about the meaning of some OT Scriptures I had studied before coming to faith in Christ was getting cleared up. Somehow, God allows the devil to take each of His earthly children through a Refiner’s fire of experiences that lead the person to: 1) be unhappy with the world-centered status quo in his life, 2) come to the conclusion that he wants to stop sinning, and 3) arrive at the place where he desires to cleanse himself and submit to God by faith in the Son. If my experience is any teacher, it is the end of simply existing and the beginning of really living in the eternal sense. I never knew real joy until I made the commitment to faithfully obey God this way. How about you?
PRAYER: O Lord, if each of us looks back on his own life, You will allow us to see the gradual way in which You changed our perspective to allow us to repent and come to faith. Your generous grace extends to giving us salvation and the gift of the Holy Spirit, things we did not and still don’t deserve. Where else can mankind find a Deity Who will make the first step and invite us to have a relationship with Him that is real and personal, except with You? Who else has the will and the power to open the way for the death of our old, flesh-driven selves and the birth of us as Your “new creation in Christ” [2 COR 5: 17]? While we were still Your enemies, You did this for us [RO 5: 9-13]. We stand before Your throne today, knowing that we are still sinners and capable of evil. We confess our sin and dedicate ourselves to choosing not to sin. Moreover, we will keep searching to find subtle, hidden sin in our lives and get rid of it. We acknowledge the immeasurable grace that You extended in sacrificing Your only begotten Son on the cross, so that Your eternal forgiveness and salvation could be made available to us. We know that without Your gift of the Holy Spirit, our faith in Him would not happen. The same is true of any understanding You give us of Your word and matters of the Spirit [1 COR 2: 14]. Piece by piece, experience by experience, You move those who believe in You toward readiness [purification and perfection] to be taken up to heaven to be by Your side for eternity. You love us, You want us to enjoy bliss and eternal fellowship with You there. How blessed we are that You are our Comforter, our Guide, our Leader, our Provider, our Healer, our Protector, and our God Almighty! You show us our spiritual poverty without You and “inwardly transform our hearts by the renewal of our minds” [RO 12: 2]. This lets us stretch toward Your perspective. Our baptism is an outward symbol of the long, hard task You do within us, bringing our commitment to living “in Christ.” We thank and praise You. Without You, our lives, we are not complete. We offer ourselves to You as both Your servants and Your friends. In Christ’s holy name, we pray. Amen.
In next week’s message, I am led to say more about baptism. Then, it’s necessary to take a closer look at why Jesus Christ is the only solution to mankind’s difficulty living lives of holiness. We all know how grimy and uncomfortable we feel, when we come into the house after we’ve been working in the garden on a hot day. The first place we head for is the shower. When our lives are being lived mired in sin, we are spiritually grimy and in need of what God has to offer when we are willing to leave that sin behind. Just as our gardens thrive from the hard work we’ve done on them, so our spirits thrive when we turn from our sin, come to faith, and are baptized. Nothing in this earthly life is easy. That’s why I said above that the devil is allowed for a time to put us through the Refiner’s fire. Notice that I said, “for a time.” That’s because our Abba, Who loves us dearly and wants us back with Him for eternity, is in control. The devil knows this, which is why we are told in REV 12:12 that he is so very angry. He knows his time is limited. This important information, coupled with God’s promise in EPH 1: 18-20 that we are given the power and authority to battle the devil to victory in Christ’s name, should change our perspective on our troubles. Think about it-the adversary won’t win, if we don’t let him! As believers, we can carry on with our efforts to learn how to faithfully obey God without ever feeling He has abandoned us [IS 49: 14-16; RO 11: 16-24] or stopped loving us. PS 145: 20, “The Lord watches over all who love Him.” All we have to do is repent, come to faith in Christ, and not waste Christ’s Atonement by refusing to learn to faithfully obey our Creator. No, it’s not simple, but it can and should be done. We can have comfort in knowing that the Lord has never commanded us to do anything that He didn’t first equip us to do. God loves each of you, and so do I.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn