DAILY DEVOTIONAL – August 11, 2020
“A Day to Remember”
Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank you for making us Your children and giving us new birth through the waters of baptism. Help us to live each day fully alive and fully in the Word of Christ Jesus Your Son, that same Word that worked salvation for us on the cross and in our baptism. Amen.
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:3-7
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Devotional – “A Day to Remember”
One of the days we celebrate that has always confused me, especially as a Christian, is the celebration of our biological birthday. Don’t get me wrong, I acknowledge and celebrate the birthdays of family and friends, they are fun times. However, if we really stop to think about what it is we are celebrating, maybe we’ll find there is another day we should be celebrating far more.
The obvious reason why our birthday is important is because without that day, we wouldn’t have life at all. There is no doubt a reason to celebrate the one day, that day that God had already seen and planned from eternity, that one day at that specific time when (as David says in Psalm 139) we were finished being “knit together in our mother’s womb” and God called us into this life. This life is a pure gift of God’s grace and it should be celebrated.
Yet, maybe for less obvious reasons, our physical birthday is also the least important day of our lives. My children, just like yours, were the most adorable babies ever to be born in the world. In those precious moments when you lay eyes on your child for the first time, it is near impossible to believe that there is a bad bone in their little body or that there is a single thing wrong with them. But we all know the reality that in a very real sense, from the moment we are born each and every one of us has both begun new life and begun the dying process at the same time. In all of their cuteness and apparent perfection, every child, every human, is born in sin and is in need of salvation. That may be hard to digest at first, but as any parent knows…just give it a year or two!
While my wife and I will continue to celebrate the birthdays of our children, there is a day eternally more significant. The real celebration, the real birthday we will pull out all the stops for and the real birthday that is truly the single most important day of my children’s lives is that date of their baptism. That is the day that they were born to true, everlasting life. That is the day I celebrate most of all because it is the day I can look back on and take absolute and certain hope from; hope in the fact that whenever that day comes when my children depart this life (long after I am gone I pray), they will live forever in the presence of our God and Savior Jesus.
How can I be so sure? My certainty comes from the Word of God that says in our text for today that God has caused me, my wife and my children to be born again to a LIVING hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading. Peter says in our text that the hope of our salvation is kept in heaven by the power of God who guards the faith of all of His faithful children so that they are ready to have their salvation revealed to them in the last time.
Just as certain as Christ rose from the dead, so to have my children and all who have been baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit been raised up already with Christ! That is how certain this living hope is. Romans 6 says that all who have been baptized have been baptized into Christ’s 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. For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.”
A living hope. That is what God’s great gift of baptism has given us because it is God who does the work in baptism. Baptism is not a symbol or a religious act, it is a sacrament commanded by God in order that the faithful would be cleansed, marked by God and truly saved by baptism. This is why Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 3, “Unless you are born again of water and the spirit, you cannot see the kingdom of God.” Baptism is the promise and the work of God, of His Spirit.
We only know God through His Word – His Word that is the power of our baptism and His written Word that gives us life each day. Jesus tells us in John 6:63, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.” Live life with the certain and living hope of Jesus Christ my friends. Live each day knowing God, following Jesus Christ and living in His Word.
Thanks for joining me today for another time of devotion, and remember, that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
