Showing posts with label Baptism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Baptism. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Washed Away

and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 3:21, NIV).

I was in the church bathroom. It was my baptism day and I was putting on my robe while also using the facilities. As I stood up and turned around to flush the toilet, my glasses slipped off my face and plunked into the bowl. I had already pushed the lever and so my glasses immediately went down the commode. I could hear them clanging all the way through the pipes as they exited the building. Talk about starting the ceremony off right!

Then again, maybe seeing my glasses being washed away like that was a good start to my baptismal ceremony. Just as my glasses were washed away by the water of the toilet, so the Apostle Peter reminds us that baptism is a sign of God’s having washed away all our sins and our guilty conscience. Once we were filthy, stained through and through with the grime of our sin, but through Christ, God has cleansed us. On the cross, Jesus took all of our sins on Himself so that if we trust in His sacrifice for us, we no longer have those sins. Jesus has taken them away from us. Through Christ, God has cleansed us from those sins.

And God’s cleansing is immediate. As fast as my glasses disappeared down that commode, so God cleanses us from all our wrongs. The moment we ask Him to wash us, He does it! Right now He’s standing ready, waiting for us to ask Him. And just like I’ll never see that pair of glasses again, so we can believe that our sins will never come back, as long as we remain in Christ. Those sins are gone. We don’t have to wallow in them anymore. We don’t have to keep doing the same wrong things. God has changed us. He has cleansed us and given us the power to resist those sins.

Take a minute today to thank God for cleansing you. Ask Him if there are any other sins that He’d like to wash away from you.