Saturday Prayer: Remembering My Baptism

Father, my baptism declared something I keep forgetting: my old self is dead. I don't need to improve it, manage it, or make it acceptable to you. It went under the water and stayed there. What came up was new creation - not improved old, but genuinely new.

Yet I keep living like I'm still the old person trying to get better instead of the new person learning to live from grace. I make resolutions like I'm saving myself through self-improvement when you've already saved me through death and resurrection. Forgive me for trying to resurrect what you drowned.

Teach me to live from my baptismal identity. I'm not the person I was - I'm who you've made me in Christ. The old has gone, the new has come. Help me believe that and live accordingly. When sin tempted me, remind me I'm dead to it. When shame accuses me, remind me I'm alive in Christ. I'm not who I was. I'm new creation. Let me live like it.