When I identify with Christ’s crucifixion through baptism, I invite a powerful force into my life—“Christ lives in me.” The cross and the empty tomb are supernatural events—they still make things happen.

In order to arouse your will to put your life fully in Christ’s hands, first look at Christ dying on the cross. Don’t look at the sin that’s threatening you in order to beef up your will; don’t look at your past record and moan; look to Jesus. If you look carefully and prayerfully, you’ll be inspired. After admiring Christ’s gracious and courageous act of will on Calvary, you can express solidarity with Him: “By the power of the cross I claim that I am dead to these habits and responsive to God. I make my stand with Christ. From now on I will ‘live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.’”

As we tap into the power of Christ’s death and resurrection we’ll see more and more of His good qualities replacing our old habits:

“Therefore, if anyone is IN CHRIST, he is A NEW CREATION; the OLD has gone, the NEW has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ.”
—2 Corinthians 5:17, 18.

Baptism is the first formal step in this process. Through it we express our desire to lock arms with Jesus and live a new and better life “in Christ.” Jesus does in us and through us what we could never do for ourselves. We arise from the water “a new creation,” and He gives us the power to live a “new” kind of life.

“No condemnation now hangs over the head of those who are ‘in’ Jesus Christ. For the new spiritual principle of life ‘in’ Christ lifts me out of the old vicious circle of sin and death.”
—Romans 8:1, 2. (The New Testament in Modern English, Phillips translation, Copyright © J. B. Phillips 1958, The Macmillan Company, New York.)