An example I have been thinking of lately is a marriage. You date, fall in love, get engaged. When you are married the ceremony is an outward expression. A public voicing of "I Do". The marriage begins and continues for a lifetime based on the promise inside that you will be a spouse�faithful.
In Abraham�s day the outward expression required was circumcision: You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you. Genesis 17:11
Today the outward expression is baptism: For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. In him you were circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. Colossians 2:9-15
Picture this--as you go under the water of baptism your old self is buried and as you come out you come alive again with your new eternal life with Christ.
Or don�t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. Romans 6:3
Paul was instructed in this way: The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth. You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard, And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name. Acts 22:14-16
How about you? What are you waiting for? I encouraged you to be baptized. I pray that he will fill you with his truth and a desire to outwardly express your commitment to Jesus Christ by baptism as a proclamation of what God has done for you.
Kathy