This week, we looked at Romans 8:26–27 as it relates to our prayer lives. As people of the Spirit, we have the opportunity to pray for people and to receive prayer. Both are necessary components of doing life together.

Romans 8:26–27 NIV

We'll be spending some time looking at Jesus' baptism, and then we will have baptisms of our own! We love this sacrament because it's an outward expression of what Christ is doing in our hearts: cleansing us and making us more like him.

Paul says in Romans 6: 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.

In our baptisms, we are putting to death our old ways and old lives, and we are surrendering to what God wants of us. And in order to fulfill all that God asks of us, we have the Spirit to fill us and empower us to do the things that Jesus did.