Daily Devotions
Born of Water
Title: Born of Water
Reading for November 20: Acts 18-19
Weekly reading for November 18-24: John 1-5
Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God."
John 3:5
Throughout the Bible there is a pattern of God saving through water. He saved Noah through water (1 Pet 3:20). He saved Israel from Pharaoh's armies by parting the waters of the Red Sea (Ex 14:15-16). The Israelites were brought through water once again to receive the Promised Land (Joshua 3). When God gives Isaiah the image of bringing his people through a kind of second Exodus, he uses the imagery of drying up the waters for the people to pass (Isa 44:26-28). David speaks of his own personal salvation from enemies as a passing through waters (Psa 18:15-19).
With this emphasis on salvation through water, we should not be surprised then when we come to passages like this one where Jesus says we must be born again of water. Or when the apostle Paul speaks of baptism as a kind of grave that we go into and then come out to live a new life (Rom 6:3-6; Col 2:12). Or when Peter directly compares the salvation of Noah's family through the flood to our salvation in 1 Peter 3:20-21:
"...when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ..." 1 Pet 3:20-21
Father, we marvel at how you have saved your people from their enemies in such amazing ways through water. We give thanks to you for saving us from our greatest enemy as we have been granted new life in the life of our risen Savior Jesus Christ!
