Dear Baptized Ones,

     This Sunday we will have the privilege of witnessing the baptism of Logan Rivera. What a joy it will be to testify of the goodness of the Lord to the Rivera family through the blessing that Logan is to their family and our church! Logan’s baptism will also be an occasion for us to reflect upon our own baptisms and the new identity in Christ baptism signifies and seals for each one of us. 

     This will be especially poignant as we come this Sunday to the closing verses of Romans 8. As Paul concludes this grand sweep of the Holy Spirit’s helping, encouraging, and empowering work in our lives he draws our attention to the stunning implication of it all: since God is for us, nothing can ultimately be against us!  Arguing from the greater to the lesser, Paul declares that since God did not spare His own Son to save us, we can be certain He will graciously give us all things with Him.  Baptism serves us as a visible declaration of this amazing truth. United to Jesus in His death and resurrection, we now share in all the heavenly blessings the Father delights to shower upon us through His Son by the power of the Holy Spirit. After considering these things, the English preacher Octavius Winslow concluded:

“Who delivered up Jesus to die?  Not Judas, for money; not Pilate, for fear; not the Jews, for envy; — but the Father, for love!”

     Join us in praying that the Spirit would use Logan’s baptism as a means to remind him all his days of the delight His heavenly Father takes in him. Ask the Spirit to use it in your life as an opportunity to improve upon your baptism by reminding you of the unshakeable confidence you have in Christ that God is for you. Because you are His, nothing in all creation can separate you from His love.

In Christ,
Robby