Weekly Pursuit – Week 4 of May
Verse:
Matt. 3:13-15 “Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him. But John tried to prevent Him…. But Jesus answered and said to him, Permit it for now, for it is fitting for us in this way to fulfill the righteousness. Then he permitted Him.”
Excerpts:
The base for Jesus to be baptized is that He considered Himself, according to His humanity, a man…. Jesus admitted He was in the flesh. Whatever He had according to the flesh was only good for death and burial. He was standing on that ground, and that ground became His base for Him to be baptized.
Before the Lord Jesus began to do anything for His ministry, the first thing He did was to come to John to receive such a baptism to declare to the whole universe that He did not depend at all upon the flesh for God’s ministry. We all have to see this. No one should bring anything of his natural life, anything of his flesh, into God’s ministry. …As a natural man in the flesh, we are good for nothing except death and burial. We need to have ourselves absolutely terminated in the water of baptism. This is the intrinsic significance of the base of Jesus’ baptism. I hope also that all the full-time trainees, spiritually speaking, have accepted such a baptism. We all should declare in our life and work: “I am a person in the flesh, worthy of nothing in the eyes of God but death and burial; so I want to have myself terminated, crucified and buried.” (The God-man Living, chaps. 5-6)