by Pastor Rich Carlson 

OK, please forgive me ahead of time, but I might get a little preachy with this one. Here is the sequence of thought that grabbed me this morning as I read Acts 2:38-40: 

1.    do something
2.    do something
3.    get something
4.    do something 

Now to specifics:

“Repent.” I need to decide to turn around, if I'm not walking with Jesus, and choose to live for Him. Or, if I have already chosen to live for Him, I still need to be aware of places in my life that might require tweaking and fine tuning. 

“Be baptized.” This is the necessary public statement of my personal commitment to follow Jesus and accept all Jesus has done for me. 

“You will receive the Holy Spirit.” None of us were at the original outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Christians at Pentecost, but if we repent and are baptized, this verse says we will receive the Holy Spirit. 

And then comes the fourth point, two verses later, which, at first, seemed to me kind of odd and unexpected: 4. “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” 

I will do my best to make the application to my own life, and try not get too preachy with everyone else.  Point number four tells me I need to make a decision about how I am going to relate to the world in which I live. I must not allow myself to be fooled into thinking that just because I have dealt with the first three points, I can ignore the last one. I cannot expect to win if I am engaged in spiritually losing activities. I cannot expect my senses to remain pure if I am allowing impurity to flow into me through them. I cannot expect my heart to be filled with love if I allow hatred, selfishness, and pride to rule. I've got to decide to consciously and intentionally “save myself” from the sin with which this world surrounds me. 

Enough of the junk of this world gets in just because I have to live here. If I want to experience the joy, peace, contentment, and victory that God wants for me, I must make those moment-by-moment decisions, through the power of God's Spirit, to win the battles over which I have control. I can choose to “save myself'” from the junk of this generation, by following the counsel of Philippians 4:8: Whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy—these are the things I need to choose.  

Repent, be baptized, be filled with His Spirit, and win the battle in the trenches of life. I can't stop all sin, but I can seek God's power to make smart choices about the obvious sin that attacks me. I want to win those battles. I really want you to win too! 

Rich Carlson is campus chaplain at Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska. "God is Faithful" is adapted from the email devotionals he writes regularly for the Union College family. Rich enjoys filling his life with God, his family, and especially his five grandchildren.