Thoughts to share and to ponder: The newness of Life

We live in an era with amazingly advanced technologies and prosperous phenomena. All kinds of new things come out every day to wipe away the old ones quickly. Yet, there is one thing is still difficult to change into something new. That is: how to clean our sinful and worldly hearts and change us into new persons. Sin or our old self, like a person, actively keeps ruling, enslaving, and directing our hearts in our everyday existence.

Jesus invites all people into the baptism in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That is to say, the Triune God will be active in our baptism. God wants to rescue us from the ruling, enslaving, and directing of sin. He wants to forgive and wash away our sin. He further wants to ensure us to have a new life springing from him. Through baptism, our sin and our self are crucified with Christ and are buried with him. When we are raised with Christ, we receive a new heart glowing with glorious holiness and righteousness of God. Sin no longer has power to grip on us. Our old self gives away to a new self. The union with Christ in our baptism effectively changes our center from sin to God. The change is possible because Jesus-Son of God- bore our sins on the cross. He went into death, the curse of sin, and he was raised up from death, overcoming the power of sin and death. It is possible also because God the Father promised to give the Holy Spirit to every believer in order to enable him/her to live to God and not to sin. This is the divine prescription of changing a sinful heart to a new heart and an old self into a new self.

Though the baptism is a one-time act, its implication will extend to the rest of a believer’s Christian Walk. This baptism is just the beginning of our walking into the newness in God. Paul in the passage we just read reminds us that to die to our old ways with Christ Jesus and to rise with him is a continuous act of believers. It is both the most basic and the highest Christian Walk. Our Bible both reveals our old ways to die and points us to new way of living. The Triune God works with his own word. Through our continuous union with Christ, we are continuously renewed and transformed into a newer and newer person.

We stand at he beginning of a new year. Our new plans and dreams require a new heart and a new person to accomplish them. The only way leading us to experience such a kind of newness is returning to God and uniting with God in Jesus Christ. That means, to die to our old self with Christ, to bury it with Christ, and to rise with Christ. May the first union with Christ in our baptism remind us of the source and ways of newness for our lives. Leu us not forget that lesson: to die to sin and our old self is indeed to live in peace, life, happiness, and success.

Prayer Suggestions:

Do a self-exam. Do I have any old and rebellious ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving which need to put in death and burial? Do I need new way of thinking, feeling, and behaving to rise? Come to unite with Jesus Christ and to experience a glorious renewal.

Lord our Savior, thank you for the first saving love in my baptism. Thank you for your marvelous way of saving me. Please continuously show me your ways, Lord, Teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth. Transform me in the union with Christ. Let your newness in me become the foundation of my work and life in this new year. I the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

Benediction

May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace, May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.