Quote of the Week: Letters to the Church

A pastor from India once told me he was researching movements and noticed a common thread:  movements of God always start with a leader who knows God deeply, and they always end when the followers know only the leader deeply.  Pastors, we must know Him deeply and make disciples whose primary attachment is to Christ Himself.
(Letters to the Church, Francis Chan, p. 114)

Quote of the Week: Letters to the Church

Leaders, I want to challenge you to examine your lives and see whether you can truly tell people in good conscience to follow you as you follow Christ.
Just because we claim to believe in Him or went to school to study for ministry, it doesn't ensure that our hearts are His.
Remember that in Jesus' day, some of the religious leaders were the most evil.
(Letters to the Church, Francis Chan, p. 111)

The Baptism of Jesus

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Luke 3:21-22

When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too.  And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in bodily form like a dove.  And a voice came from heaven:  "You are My Son, whom I love, with you I am well pleased."

Why did Jesus need to be baptized?  He is the Son of God.  He is God.  It doesn't make sense that He would need to be baptized.

That's exactly what John the Baptist thought.  In Matthew's account of this event John's response was, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?"

Thankfully, Matthew also records Jesus' response, "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness."

Clearly, as true man, Jesus needed to be baptized to receive the Holy Spirit.  This doesn't make any sense to my human brain because Jesus was, and is, true God; but by doing this He demonstrated that everyone needs to be baptized.  He showed us how important Baptism is.  Jesus came to fulfill the Law.  There was no Law that He ignored or disobeyed.  In Galatians 4 Paul tells us that He was
"born under the Law to redeem those under the Law."  

Sadly, there are some Christians who don't value Baptism as much as Jesus.  They don't believe it saves.  They believe that it's merely an outward proclamation to commit their life to Christ.

Here's what God's Word tells us we receive from Baptism:

1.  Baptism gives us forgiveness of sins.*

Acts 2:38- Repent and be baptized, every one of you , in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

Acts 22:16- Be baptized and wash your sins away.

2.  Baptism gives us deliverance from the power of death and the devil.*

Romans 6:3- Don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

Hebrews 2:14-15- He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death--that is, the devil--and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

3.  Baptism gives us eternal salvation.*

Mark 16:16-- Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.

1 Peter 3:20-21-- In it [Noah's ark] only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also.

*Taken from Kuske's Catechism (Northwestern Publishing House; 1982, 1989, 1998)

Jesus received everything He needed at His baptism.  The Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove, and God the Father publicly proclaimed His love for Jesus and affirmed Him.  Can you imagine hearing those words from our Heavenly Father:  You are My Son whom I love.  With You I am well pleased.

Not only did God let everyone present know that Jesus is the Son of God, but He also told Jesus how much He loved Him and how pleased He was with Him.  I don't think that it's a coincidence that this all happened immediately before Jesus was led out to the wilderness to be tempted.  As true man He needed the Holy Spirit and the encouragement from His Father.

This is also why we need baptism.  We need to be armed with the Holy Spirit because we cannot stand up to satan on our own.  Without the help of the Holy Spirit and the faith He gives us, we don't even desire to stand against satan and his temptations.  It is our faith that motivates us to want to live according to God's commands.  It is only by faith that we desire to please our Heavenly Father.

Thankfully, God has given us this gift of baptism so that by it, we can all be adopted into His family as His children; and God's guarantee is that baptism works every time.  Everyone who is baptized receives the Holy Spirit and faith.

Galatians 3:26-27

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

God bless

Jason Fredrick

Quote of the Week: Letters to the Church

Our Father thinks all His children are extremely gifted.  God is convinced He did an amazing job in creating each of them and supernaturally empowering them.  His desire is to see all His kids serve to their full potential.  He placed church leaders on the earth to ensure this would happen.  Few people understand this to be the role of their church leaders, and the leaders themselves often don't understand their role.  Leaders have become like personal trainers who lift the weights for their clients.  They run on the treadmill while their trainees sit and marvel.  Then we wonder why we the people aren't developing.
(Letters to the Church, Francis Chan, p. 91)

Quote of the Week: Letters to the Church

Don't you see the weirdness in calling people CHRISTian when they aren't servants?  I know we can't force people to serve, but there has to be something we can do.  No team puts up with players who refuse to contribute.  No army puts up with soldiers who don't carry their own weight.  Why do churches continue to put up with Christians who refuse to serve?  Why don't we treat selfishness as a sin that needs to be confronted?  If Scripture commands us to serve one another, isn't it a bit strange that we give people a free pass?...
We confront sexual immorality in our churches because we are commanded to live holy lives.  The adulterous person does not represent Christ well.  But neither does the consumer.  It's a sin that has to be confronted if we want to give the world an accurate representation of the body of Christ.  And if we really love our brothers and sisters, shouldn't we be encouraging them to repent?
(Letters to the Church, Francis Chan, pp. 97-98)