DAILY DEVOTIONAL – JULY 15, 2023 Hearing the Most Important Voice By Tim Dilena

A water baptism announces to everyone who you are following, but it doesn’t make you a Christian any more than a wedding ring on your finger makes you married. The ring is a symbol, and baptism is a symbol. To make it anything more than a symbol is dangerous, but it is an important second step in our faith journey. Communion and water baptism are mini-dramas of salvation using props like water, bread and wine. They are sacred moments for God to speak to us. That’s what happened to Jesus.  “When Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’” (Matthew 3:16-17, ESV) We live in a world crowded with voices all shouting at us, “You’re not good enough! You’re not skinny enough! You don’t make enough money! You’re not married! You don’t have kids!” Those voices label you over what you’re not. The biggest temptation today is to seek an alternative identity to who God created us to be. We see it in the ways we answer the question “Who am I?” “I am what I do; my job and career define me.” When you get old and can no longer do a job and retire, you then lose your identity. “I am what others say about me. People’s words about me have power, especially depending on who is talking about me.” You’re good when the talk about you is good, but you lose your identity when it’s negative. “I am what I have. I have a degree, health, good parents, good children, good salary and security.” When you lose any of those things, you lose your identity. We need to listen to and hear the voice that Jesus heard at his baptism. As Steven Furtick writes, “The voice you believe will determine the future you experience.” God’s voice is where our identity is truly found and the searching stops. Proverbs tells us, “Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track” (Proverbs 3:6, MSG)—because you are his beloved. After pastoring an inner-city congregation in Detroit for thirty years, Pastor Tim served at Brooklyn Tabernacle in NYC for five years and pastored in Lafayette, Louisiana, for five years. He became Senior Pastor of Times Square Church in May of 2020.