“Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
October 4, 2022
I visited our wonderful missionaries in Kenya, Jim and Peggy Hooten. Jim took me out in his Land Rover. We went on the hard road, then we got on the gravel road, then we got on no road. Then we kept going further and further out to the foot of Kilimanjaro, there in the Maasai country where those great tall magnificent Maasai warriors are. Jim Hooten had a tent out there. That was his church, and he was telling those warriors about the Lord Jesus. Then he said, “Come over here, I want to show you this.” He had dug a pit in the ground that looked so much like the graves that I have stood beside so many times when I preach funerals. He’d lined that pit with plastic, and he had brought water on his land Rover and filled the pit with water. He baptized the Maasai in that grave. It looked like a grave because indeed that’s what the baptistery is—it is a liquid tomb.
Journal today about your experience of being baptized into the death of Jesus and how it has changed your life.
I try to unplug each morning with Jesus with just my rocking chair, my Bible, and a pen.
Having a secret place is very important because I know that Jesus is always there waiting for me. I know where I can find Him! His presence is everywhere, but there are places where it is so thick you can cut it with a knife. You may not even have a front porch, but there is a secret place for you as well. God’s invitations are for anyone who will respond. There is no more important request than the one found in Psalm 27:8: “My heart has heard You say, ‘Come and talk with Me.’ And my heart responds, ‘Lord, I am coming.’”