The Way to Love

At our devotional this morning at work, we got on the subject of baptism. I made the point that while I love this fellowship I've been in the past 30 years, the one thing that has bugged me is our overemphasis on baptism. I said that we need to remember that no matter what we do in response to God's love and offer of salvation in Christ, nothing we do can earn that grace. It is a gift of grace, bought for us by the blood of Jesus. We're saved by grace alone, through faith alone, through Christ alone.

When I turned on my computer today, for some reason I came across this excellent piece on the new birth by Dale Pauls, a long time minister of a church in Connecticut. I hope it blesses you like it did me.

Jim

"The Way to Love"

by Dale Pauls

4/10/2005

You may be surrounded by the kingdom of God, and still not see it. That’s the point Jesus makes to Nicodemus in John 3:1-15: The kingdom of God may be all around you, the way to love may be right in front of you, but unless at some point in your soul’s journey you start completely over in the way you think, feel and act—that is, unless you’re born again—you will never be part of it.

Nicodemus, however, is stuck in the how mode. How? How? How can this be? Jesus, beginning in verse 10, answers: You as a Teacher in Israel should know better! Remember what Isaiah was always talking about—newness, starting over—a new song (42:10), a new thing, a way in the desert, streams in the wasteland (43:19), a new name (62:20), new heavens and a new earth (65:17). Remember Jeremiah: a new covenant—written on the heart (31:31ff). Remember Ezekiel (36:24ff): “I will sprinkle clean water on you. … I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.” Nicodemus, you’ve seen what’s been happening with John the Baptist down at the Jordan—the changed lives, Nicodemus! And Nicodemus, just look at life itself. Stop and look and see. You know the Law; you know people. There must be radical change—you know it!—a rebirth from above, wiping the slate clean, starting life over, a spiritual resurrection, a new birth, a turning point.

That’s always the message of Scripture: a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17), so that we may live a new life (Romans 6:1-14), with new wineskins (Matthew 9:14-17), like little children again (Matthew 18:1-4), because God is making everything new (Revelation 21:5). The message is always: Whoever you are, and whatever you’ve done, you can start over, you can be born again, you can experience the forgiveness of God and you can discover within yourself the Spirit of God. But it’s not magic in the water. It’s a lifelong process, begun in baptism, reliving my baptism, always putting off the old and putting on the new, until Christ is formed in me (Galatians 4:19), all the while being transformed into his likeness with ever increasing glory (2 Corinthians 3:18). There is a sense then in which every day I must be born again.

So, yes, I am baptized. It’s a gift from God. It corresponds to the deepest needs every human being has. It’s God’s gift of forgiveness experienced and known deep in the soul. It’s God’s gift of grace. It’s God’s gift of eternal innocence, even to those (in Acts 2) whose hands are still wet with the blood of the Messiah. It’s a rebirth, a starting over, a fundamental turning point in one’s life when one sets out firmly on the way to love and enters finally and mindfully into God’s reign of love.

The deepest spiritual truth, however, is the absolute necessity of being born again, not to become a certain kind of Christian in counterpoint to others, but to become a different kind of person than you have ever been, and a different kind of person than you ever otherwise would be, a person who learns to master anger and fear; forgive those who sin against you; love your enemies; trust God; live in the moment, gently appreciative of all God has given you; be content in all circumstances and outcomes; be warmly responsive to all people you encounter; in short, to be a person who has learned the way to love. Now your life can be part of God’s reign of love and peace on earth. Now you will see it. Now you will enter into it.

Maybe you still find yourself given to mindless rage or to mind-numbing anxiety. Maybe there’s something in your life, something wrong, that you can’t say “No” to and it’s making you dysfunctional in all other areas of your life. Maybe your family is on the edge of break-up and you somehow can never quite do what it takes to hold it together.

One way or another life has worn you down, deadened your spirit, destroyed your dreams and broken your heart. Maybe it’s time to be radically reborn from above. It’s played out in baptism, but it’s something God does. It’s from above. For our part, it’s often a matter of letting go and letting God, letting go of your pride, your defensiveness, all the walls you’ve constructed to protect yourself, your tight-jawed, fist-clenched approach to life, letting go of your fear and anger. Let yourself go down into the waters of baptism, and then everyday be reborn. Remember the feeling as a child when you woke up and morning smiled ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy years ago. God wants you to feel that way again. And when you do you will have found the way to love.