PT-2 “The Son’s Baptism” (Luke 3:21)

 

MORNING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/01/2026 8:06 AM

My Worship Time                                                                     Focus:  PT-2 “The Son’s Baptism”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                                       Reference:  Luke 3:21

            Message of the verse:  “Now when all the people were baptized, Jesus was also baptized and while He was praying, heaven opened,”

            I continue looking at this verse in this morning’s SD.

            Now we know that Jesus lived a perfectly righteous life, and that was not only a demonstration of His deity, but it was also absolutely essential for our salvation.” (“ 2 Corinthians 5:21)

(2 Corinthians 5:21)

“21  For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (ESV)

Now the apostle Paul explained is the one who wrote this verse in 2 Corinthians to help us understand this truth.  It was God who imputed the sins of all who would believe in Jesus to Him on the cross, and imputed Jesus’ perfect righteousness to them, and for that we are thankful forever.  In other words, God treated Jesus as if He had lived believers’ sinful lives and treated them as if they had lived His sinlessly perfect life.  So obviously, if He had merely come down from heaven, been crucified, and raised three days later, there would have been no righteous life to impute to believers.  It was because He did live such a life that Paul could speak of “not having a righteousness of [his] own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith” (Phil. 3:9).

            MacArthur writes “Although all three of the Synoptic Gospels record Jesus’ baptism and John refers to it, only Luke notes that Jesus was praying.  During His baptism, as was the case throughout His life, Jesus was in unbroken communion with the Father—except for that moment on the cross when He cried out, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’  (Matthew 27:46).  From beginning to end Jesus’ earthly ministry was marked by frequent times of prayer.  He prayed at His baptism (Luke 3:21), during His first preaching tour (Mark 1:35; Luke 5:16), before choosing the twelve apostles (Luke 6:12-13), before feeding the 5000 (Matt 14:19), after feeding the 5000 (Matt. 14:23), before feeding the 4000 (Matt. 15:36), before Peter’s confession of Him as the Christ (Luke 9:18), at the transfiguration (Luke 9:28-29), for some children brought to Him (Matt. 19:13), after the return of the seventy (Luke 10:21), before giving the Lord’s Prayer (Luke 11:1), before raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11:41-42), as He faced the reality of the cross (John 12:28), at the Last Supper (Matt. 26:26-27), for Peter (Luke 22:31-32), in Gethsemane (Matt. 26:36-44), from the cross (Matt. 27:46; Luke 23:34, 46), with the disciples He encountered on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:30), at the ascension (Luke 24:50-51) and, supremely, in His high priestly prayer in John 17.

            “Until this point Jesus’ baptism had been done the same as everyone else’s.  But what happened next was utterly transcendent and unlike anything anyone there that day had ever seen.  While Jesus was coming up out of the water, still praying, heaven was opened.  Whenever that happened in Scripture, either God manifested Himself in some way, spoke, or both.  In Ezekiel 1:1, ‘the heavens were opened and [Ezekiel] saw visions of God.’  Stephen ‘gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God’ (Acts 7:55), and cried out, ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God’ (v. 56).  In Revelation 19:11, the apostle John ‘saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war.’  At Christ’s baptism, as the transfiguration and in John 12:28, God spoke from heaven.  But before He did, another dramatic event occurred.”  In this evening’s SD we will look at what occurred.

Spiritual Meaning for my Life today:  As I see all the different times that Jesus prayed to His Father that are listed above, it makes me ashamed that I do not pray in things that are going on in my life, and believe me much is going on that needs to be bathed in prayer at this time.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Trusting the Lord to give our family peace as we go down to Columbus, Oh. to see another cancer doctor for my wife, that the Lord will answer our many prayers during this first visit to Columbus.

5/1/2026 8:37 AM