Along with other pastors, I had the privilege of baptizing people at an outdoor service, The Time of Your Life. It is nothing short of a miracle when an individual asks Christ into their life and experiences authentic transformation. When you come down to it, committing to live by faith in Christ changes everything we know to be true. It is then, that the step of faith to be baptized makes sense. The thing is . . . we enter a sacred moment of time . . . when we do what Jesus has said to do . . . to "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19)."
I have often thought that when an individual comes up and out of the water there is a "Red Sea" experience. Remember the story of Moses as he stood before the Red Sea and did what God said to do? God gave Moses instructions to stand firm, go forward, lift his staff, hold his hand out over the water and divide it. And . . . the water divided and the people walked through it . . . saved and delivered from the oppression of slavery.
God takes us to the place of the Red Sea when we do what he says in faith. The division of the "Red Sea" is the place where we understand what life is really about. In that moment we understand that God is God. We don't need to fear when we understand that God has planned for us to be free to experience life through an ongoing-active-ongoing relationship with Him:
But Moses said to the people, "Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the LORD which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever.
"The LORD will fight for you while you keep silent."
Then the LORD said to Moses, "Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the sons of Israel to go forward.
"As for you, lift up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, and the sons of Israel shall go through the midst of the sea on dry land (Exodus 14: 13-16).
Not one of us has to live standing at the bank of the Red Sea. God has planned for us to live by faith and go through the Red Sea. It is nothing short of a miracle.
Confess an oppressive circumstance in your life.
Believe God will free you from the oppression.
Stand firm.
Go forward in faith.
Experience the place of the division of the Red Sea in your life.
Learning with you to KICK START the day by faith that the Red Sea will divide,
Kerrie
(written by Kerrie Palmer © 2010 All Rights Reserved)