Choosing to yield

07Nov07

Have you given much thought to how baptism relates to sin in your life? That is what I have been thinking about today.

So, as soon as I said baptism, your mind immediately went to thoughts of immersion or sprinkling of water. Right? A river, a pool, a lake, or bowl next to an altar…
I don’t think that we use the word baptism the right way in the modern english language. Especially when it relates to Christian faith. The original greek word used in this sense means to immerse, or “put into”. I guess that I could use an analogy of putting a piece of paper into a 3 ring binder. This would be a baptism of the paper into the binder. It is the same in the sense of how God views a believer in Christ.
The Apostle Paul says in Romans 6, that if we are baptized, or “put into” Christ, how can we continue in sin? This is a particularly hard passage to read. We have been baptized into Christ’s death (Rom.6:3) and have been raised into newness of life (or a new life, depending upon your translation of the text). This means that sin no longer has a claim on us. We are dead to sin.

Ugh. Heavy stuff to understand. I think that if I could make sense of this chapter in this book of scripture, that I might understand the whole thing. If sin has no power over me, how do I keep sinning – wouldn’t I stop? I guess the answer is found further down in the passage of Romans 6. At verse 12 and 13, Paul says ” …neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God…”. The choice of the word “yield” to me, implies that its a choice (even though at the time, it doesn’t seem like a choice).

Today, I worked on that choice. To be conscious of what choice I was making – and it is tough thing to do. To focus on our Heavenly Father and what I have learned that he would have me choose, rather than my own selfish agenda.

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