Tiger Woods – infidelity, adultery, sex addiction
Alexander McQueen, the famous English fashion designer who killed himself last week – relationship-dependent on his mother who died seven days before he committed suicide
Joseph Stack, who set fire to his own home and crashed his airplane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas this week – suicide, grudges, anger
Every day we see stories like these. People who lost their heads, and with it, their reputation, money, family, and in some cases their own lives. Notice, however, what motivates these people to such senseless acts. Unbridled lust, lack of self-control, absence of spiritual fortitude to deal with the temptations and setbacks of life. Works of the flesh, as explained in the Scriptures.
But we don’t really need to watch the news for these stories. All around us we can find similar cases in our circle of friends, family, and colleagues — and perhaps even in our own lives.
Please remember this: human nature is weak. It is unable to face and overcome the challenges of life. My Lord Jesus said that the solution to that problem is dying to the self and being reborn. When we choose to die to our ego, we allow Him to form us into a new creation, one that is made in His image and bears His nature — therefore able to overcome anything.
“For whatever is born of God overcomes the world.” 1 John 5.4
To do away with the old nature, there is water baptism. However, the reason why many people get baptized but are not reborn is that they did not die to their self before baptism.
Get this:
The ceremony of baptism is like a person’s burial. When you go to someone’s funeral, the person is no longer there. Only his body is. He died days before. Now, it's just his body being buried.
Similarly, when a person is baptized for real, the baptismal ceremony is just the confirmation of what has already happened before he entered the waters — the death of the self. First you die, then comes your burial. First you decide to die to yourself, then comes baptism in water.
If you:
- Recognize that you’re weaker than your uncontrollable lusts
- Don’t have self-control when you need it most
- Have grudges and hard feelings you can’t let go of
- Keep on falling into selfish mistakes and feeling remorseful but not enough to stop it
- Recognize that you have not yet become a new person
- Decide now to die to your old self
Then, go to your nearest church and ask about being baptized in water for a new beginning. But make sure that you have decided to die to yourself first. Being buried alive cannot be a good experience...
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8 comments:
Este articulo me hace reflectinar en mi vida
I was baptized 3 times before my last one. I never really understood what it meant, I only knew that a 'New' person was supposed to come out of it and I'd be forgiven. But never put into thought that my old persona had to DIE. I went in, and came out thinking my sins were washed away and I could still continue doing the same things I used to do, but in a 'less worse' way. It wasn't until my last baptism that I understood what I was about to do. I DIED to the world, and renounced all the evil things within it, and through that a new person was born.
Bishop Renato,
Although the following does not talk about baptism I'd like to add it:
When you are forgotten or neglected or purposely set at naught, and you sting and hurt with the insult of the oversight, but your heart is happy, being counted worthy to suffer for Christ – that is dying to self.
When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your advice disregarded, your opinions ridiculed and you refuse to let anger rise in your heart, or even defend yourself, but take it all in patient loving silence – that is dying to self.
When you lovingly and patiently bear any disorder, any irregularity, or any annoyance; when you can stand face to face with waste, folly, extravagance, spiritual insensibility, and endure it as Jesus endured it - that is dying to self.
When you are content with any food, any offering, any raiment, any climate, any society, any attitude, any interruption by the will of God – that is dying to self.
When you can never care to refer to yourself in conversation, or to record your own good works, or itch after commendation, when you can truly love to be unknown – that is dying to self.
When you see your brother prosper and have his needs met and can honestly rejoice with him in spirit and feel no envy ... that is dying to self.
When you can receive correction and reproof from one of less stature than yourself, can humbly submit inwardly as well as outwardly, finding no rebellion or resentment rising up within your heart – that is dying to self.
Source: unknown.
This is not only true, it is so serious!
Many times, after we become older in the presence of God, we have the tendancy to stop analysing our lives on a daily basis to make sure that our old self is kept dead forever.
May God have mercy on us.
That quote fromt the Bible, 1 John 5:4, is a quote that I consider one of my favorites because it reminds us that if we are with God, NOTHING can ever bring us down, we conquer the world. It gives me motivation and reminds me that I really have nothing to fear because He is on my side.
i would like to say i also have been baptized ones or twice if i could remember and all those times i never took it serious. i didn't know what it meant to be born again. "a new person". till it hit me, the first time i really open up my heart to god.i started leaving the world, changing my bad habits, etc. that's how i died. the world doesn't know me anymore. the old me is dead and a new one is born.
I think many people are deceive because what the world offers is very attractive, but at the end the pay of sin is dead... sad for this people and for the anyones who forgets God. good post.
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