“Put on your new nature, created to
be like God—truly righteous and holy”
—Ephesians
4:24 (NLT).
In her 1908 classic, “Anne of Green
Gables,” author Lucy Maude Montgomery said, “Isn’t it nice to think that
tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?” Although each day is
full of promise and expectation, New Year’s is the only day we celebrate with
fanfare and excitement. Then, as the days pass, we often find ourselves
forgetting January 1 isn’t the only day we can start anew.
When the calendar changes from one
year to the next, we’re filled with hope and the possibilities that await us.
We’ve made mistakes in the past and vow not to revisit them. But then, we
stumble. We vow to make changes on the first day of each year, but our motivation
wanes as we get caught up in the mundane.
Former UCLA Basketball Coach John Wooden
once said, “If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything. I’m
positive that a doer makes mistakes.”
Recently, a relative lamented the many
mistakes he’d made in his failed marriage. He was heartbroken and taking all of
the blame upon himself. Although he had been raised attending church, he had
drifted away. As his marriage crumbled around him, he said, “I’ve never felt so
lost in my life.”
Then, he admitted he had not been
putting God first in his life. Since that realization, he has returned to
church, was baptized and is now seeking God’s will each day. During his
baptism, the pastor did something unique. While denominations differ in their baptismal
rite, I delighted in this pastor’s choice. It was a full body immersion with
the pastor laying my relative backward into the water, then lifting him up and
placing him face forward into the baptistry.
It's only through God's Holy Spirit we can become a new person.
Explaining the symbolism of this
method, the pastor said, “When being placed backward and then forward into the
water, it represents a letting go of the past—or the old man—and moving
forward, filled with God’s Holy Spirit.”
