2-8-2014

Good Morning to All,

     Romans 6:4; “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

      Every so often, I like to mess with the minds of my confirmands; nothing serious just a little something to keep them off guard.  I realize that it might be somewhat cruel but the goal is to get them to think and to begin to understand what faith is.  This is partly because of trying to teach them to listen to Scriptures and not to the current “pop theology” that makes its way into the media now and again.

     So I asked them, “When do you receive eternal life?”  They paused for a moment and then began to respond.  The most common answer was, “when you die”.  This was the favorite answer.  When we die, we go to heaven and get eternal life.  One threw in, “when Jesus returns.”  I think he smelled a trap and didn’t want to follow the others too quickly.  So we danced around it a little more and we started looking at different Bible passages and came upon this one.  So now we started talking about Baptism and what we receive from God’s gift.

    At Baptism, we receive the forgiveness of sins.  This is the start of our eternal life.  It is here when we enter into God’s kingdom.  We walk in newness of life, a life that is recreated and restored into God’s loving family forever.  We don’t have to wait until we die; we can savor and enjoy God’s wonderful gift of eternal life from the very start.  After Baptism, we are saved and given the gift of eternal life.  It is ours, we have it in our possession but we are not fully utilizing it yet.  We sometimes call this the “now but not yet” belief.  We are now saved; we live by grace in God’s kingdom but we do not yet have its full glory; that is yet to come to us.  But we have eternal life; we have already received this wondrous gift from God it is ours today, right now; we do not have to wait until later we have it now and we can begin to participate in the life right now.  WE have fellowship and communion with God through the Holy Spirit.  We have the ability to communicate directly with our God as he is our dear father.  He is not some vicious and cruel judge; he is a loving and kind God who wants you to be with him forever including right now.

     We don’t have to wait until tomorrow or the next day, we can celebrate right now.  We have his blessing of eternal life right now.  The gift of eternal life is with us right now, so savor the fruits right now!

Father of all wondrous mercy, through your grace we have eternal life.  You give this to us through the washing and regeneration that we receive because of your promised mercy.  Give us the renewed spirit that we may live with you in glory ever after.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret