See here is water.. what hinders me from being baptized?

[Ebn Barbara]

It is an encouraging message from the Lord for each one of us today..
If you respond to this message today, the path of your life will completely change..
It is a message for all those who struggle and stumble with bondages and difficult habits, and are not yet delivered from them until today, in spite of all the attempts they have made.. carrying inside of them many questions..

We were all, without any exception, saved by grace; when we came to the Lord Jesus repenting and invited Him to enter our hearts, believing in His precious blood He shed for us on the cross, and in His free salvation He offered us..
However, after this great decision that took us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, and made us sons of God.. all of us, without any exception started to face sins, bondages and habits, which we carried with us from our old life before we knew the Lord and were born again.. These confrontations exhausted us, drained all our strength, made us lose the joy of the salvation we had when we accepted the Lord, and made us paralyzed and occupied with ourselves, and often so far away from the plan of the Lord for our life..
Why am I not yet set free from this unclean bondage?
Why do I still suffer from fear and anxiety?
Why do I still fall so often into this sin?
Why? And why? In spite of all my sincere attempts to leave this sin or that one.

There is only one reason:
“Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3).

Beloved: May the Lord give us today, by His righteous Spirit, to understand in depth the meaning of His message to us, in order to be set free from every bondage, sin and difficult habits, and to break the yokes that weighed down on us for so many years, so that we can enjoy happiness again, live a victorious life, and let the Lord use us without any hindrance..

Let’s start our meditation with this paragraph from the word of God, and let us draw from it the message that the Lord wants to give to each one of us today:
“Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, ‘Arise and go toward the south… So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians… had come to Jerusalem to worship, and was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. Then the Spirit said to Philip, ‘go near and overtake this chariot.’ So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ And he said, ‘How can I, unless someone guides me?’ And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him. The place in the Scriptures which he read was this:
‘He was lead as a sheep to the slaughter; And as a lamb before its shearer is silent, So He opened not His mouth. In His humiliation His justice was taken away, And who will declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth.’
So the eunuch answered Philip and said, ‘I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?’ Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him. Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, ‘See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?’ Then Philip said, ‘If you believe with all your heart, you may.’ And he answered and said, ‘I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.’ So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing.” (Acts 8:26-39).

The bible does not mention the previous dealings of God with this eunuch, but what we read affirms to us the existence of such dealings of God with him, for he was going to Jerusalem to worship, and he was reading Isaiah the prophet..
And in the right timing the Lord sent Philip to him, led by the Holy Spirit, to teach him what he had to do.. And when Philip asked him if he understood what he was reading, he answered that he needed someone to guide him.. So Philip showed him the way.. and the man believed Philip’s words, and when the scene was complete.. the man took advantage of the opportunity on the spot, without delaying or postponing.. and said:
“See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?”
So Philip baptized him, the matter was carried out just as the Lord desired, the mission of Philip was accomplished and the Holy Spirit caught him away.. As for the man, he went on his way rejoicing.

The lessons of this passage are precious and deep, and they all fit into the subject of our meditation today, which will most certainly lead us to discover the way of the Lord, to deliver us from bondages, sins and struggles, which we suffered from and are still suffering from everyday.

Beloved: First of all I want you to know that the Lord does not stand watching you suffer and struggle, rather he cares for you, even if many times you were not feeling this, for His word for us affirms that:
“He who did not spare His own son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

And it also says: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7).

And as the Lord dealt with the Ethiopian eunuch, He is certainly dealing with us today and He is preparing us to come to the point the eunuch reached, for Him to fulfill exactly what we need. But it has to be according to His own way and timing, so we can go on our way rejoicing, if we discern His way and timing, and if we take advantage of every opportunity on the spot, without delaying or postponing.
For many times we hinder the work of the Spirit by relying on our human strength, personal opinion, and personal timing to fulfill what we need.

The Apostle Paul says clearly:
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:8-10).

“for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13).
By grace we are saved as we previously mentioned, but the Lord went a step further, as He created us in Christ Jesus for good works, which He prepared beforehand, and He expects us to walk in them.. The story does not end here, for Himself, through the Holy Spirit, works in us to desire and to be able to do what pleases Him..
And here some of you may ask.. So what is my role?
Your role and mine, is to respond to the Holy Spirit when He prompts us to do a certain thing, after He first prepared us for it, and after He created a desire in us and gave us strength to do it, in other words our role is to accept and not harden our hearts, as the word says:
“Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts” (Hebrews 3:7-8).

Your role and mine, is to do as the Ethiopian eunuch did, to take advantage of the opportunity on the spot, without delaying or postponing: “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?”

I will explain more due to the importance of this subject:
1- When we are born again, our spirit – our inner man – desires to do the perfect will of God, that is our heart’s desire is against sin, and the Holy Spirit starts to strengthen this desire to make it firmly established and solid, and our role is to respond to the work of the Holy Spirit in order to continuously have this attitude of heart, which is to refuse sin, to judge it, and to call it by its name without any quibble, justification or defending it, even if we are still falling into it.

2- When you possess this attitude, comes the next step, which is to learn how to rest in the abundant grace, that is to realize in the depth of your heart, that you are justified by the precious blood, and that the Lord sees you without flaws, blameless and without sin, even if you are still falling into sin several times, or if you have a difficult bondage that you are not yet free from, because He sees you under the cover of the blood of Jesus Christ perfect and without flaws. And be assured that you will not be set free from any bondage before you believe that the Lord accepts you just as you are, loves you with an unconditional love, doesn’t blame you, doesn’t despise you, and He doesn’t want to punish you.

3- Do not struggle, do not try with your own strength to be set free from what you are suffering from, do not rely on your human strength and abilities, and do not set plans, ways and timings from your own; rather wait on the Lord with confidence and rest, for He is the one Who deals with you in various ways (it is not possible to explain them all now), and He prepares you to reach the point where you are ready to get rid of a certain sin or bondage. The lame man by the pool of Bethesda had a certain conception to get healed: that someone had to put him into the pool when the angel comes and stirs up the water, and he had to be the first one to get into this pool; and he stayed like this for 38 years without being healed, and when the Lord asked him: “Do you want to be made well?” He didn’t simply say yes, rather he answered: “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool”.
And the passage we examined gives us the course of the Lord’s dealings with us, for this eunuch was going to the temple to worship, and was reading the word of God, and this is what we always have to do, for the Lord usually speaks to us and deals with us through His word, whether it is in a direct way while we are reading the word of God, or through a certain sermon, or a spiritual book…
And when the eunuch was ready, according to the mercy of the Lord and His timing, He sent Philip to him, who is today a symbol of the Holy Spirit, and He knew that he didn’t understand what he was reading, just as He knows today that you do not understand what you are going through, since despite all your attempts you are still failing.
And the eunuch said to Philip: “How can I understand, unless someone guides me?”.. and he showed him the way and the solution.

4- And after all the preparation that the Lord is doing, comes your turn, just as the eunuch did, take advantage of every opportunity, without postponing or delaying, and do not harden your heart when you hear His voice, but instantly respond to the work of the Lord at the right moment, so you can get what you waited for during so many years, and go on your way rejoicing like what happened with this eunuch.

The walls of Jericho are another example for us, for they didn’t fall instantly, but the Lord gave clear and exact directions for Joshua to follow so the walls would tumble. To turn around it for six days, one time every day, and on the seventh day to turn around it seven times, and at the seventh time when the priests blow the trumpets, the people shout and the walls come down and the Lord gives the city into their hands, and this is exactly what happened..

They shouldn’t shout before the seventh day, and not after, but exactly as said the Lord, and they shouldn’t hit the walls with a hammer and not with sticks, but they should shout. (Joshua 6:1-20).

Finally I close with this key verse that the Apostle Paul left with us as an example to follow:
“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” (1 Corinthians 15:10).

Paul became the Paul that we know thanks to the grace of God, but he says that the grace of God toward him was not in vain, but he labored more than everyone, and here he speaks about his role and the role that every believer should do, and all of us know what this great apostle did, but he goes on and says that it is not him who labored and did the work but the grace of God..

Yes, it is not a mathematical operation that we discover and that’s it, rather it is a lifetime walk with God, through which we learn a new lesson every day in different ways; sometimes through the word, sometimes through discipline, and sometimes through painful and difficult circumstances. We learn what is the role of the Lord and what is our role; we learn how to wait on Him to prepare us and deal with us, to become ready, and when each one of us does his part lead by the Holy Spirit, relying on His strength, to grow every day, and we walk from glory to glory and from strength to strength, fulfilling His righteous, pleasing and perfect will for us, and as the Psalm 84 says:
“Blessed are those who dwell in Your house; They will still be praising You. Blessed are those whose strength is in you, Whose heart is set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, They make it a spring… They go from strength to strength”.

[بنت معلم الاجيال]

Thank you

very beautiful