This is an excerpt from Remembering Your Baptism: A Sinner Saint Devotional (1517 Publishing, 2025) by Kathy Morales, pgs 74-77.
“The Church exists to tell anyone and everyone who knocks on her door wondering what’s inside: Come and see” (pg. 58). Such reminders make The Church a worthwhile read.
The way of the cross is the actual way of victory. Jesus absorbs the worst of what humanity and even the devil can do to him, and he spurns the shame of it all.

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Rather than validate our selfish, self-serving choices, he justifies us by giving us new life and baptizing us into his death and resurrection.
“Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl.” Those nine words could serve as the Bible’s subtitle.
We would expect Jesus to be delighted people have responded to the master’s invitation. Instead, Jesus asks these people to reconsider whether they should be following Him or not.
When disagreements break out we unfriend, unfollow, and unburden our minds by surrounding ourselves with only the right sorts of people.
The distinction between Christ-for-you and Christ-in-you can present a misleading dichotomy.
As we do in daily life, so we have done in our reading of the Bible: we have placed ourselves at the center, and Christ at the periphery.
God is the only one who decides what we receive, when, and how it’s given to us.
The question that this text poses for us today is “What does it mean to believe in the resurrection?”
Jesus and the New Testament—good. Yahweh and the Old Testament—not really so good. So goes the popular, but largely whispered, dichotomy.
Christ’s death is sufficient for all, even Christians.
The focus of 1 Peter on baptism is one that has puzzled many people.
Jesus doesn’t talk about God’s love for us; he embodies it.