February 16, 2004

"Baptized into the Trinity"

At Baptism, we received three beautiful gifts that are extremely important for intercessors.  We freely received the gifts of faith, hope, and love.  Faith is a beautiful gift to believe.  It's pure gift to believe that we are loved, to believe that we are going to heaven, and to believe that Jesus died for me.  The mind can't prove this, but the heart knows.   It's gift to know that we have been called and set aside to be God's own special people.

We also received the gift of hope at Baptism.  With this gift of hope, we connect into becoming a priestly people, into the vocation of Jesus, the High Priest Himself.  Jesus was a reconciler.  He was a healer.  He was a teacher.  He was many different things, but primarily, He was the Lamb of God who came to take away sin.  He went on the Cross to reconcile us to the Father.

St. Peter told the early Church, "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people He claims for His own" (1 Pt 2:9).  If we are a priestly people, then we must have a priestly function.  Our priestly function is intercession.  Intercession is a beautiful ministry of sharing in the priestly ministry of Jesus.  We're reconcilers, and many times we need to go on the Cross to get those graces.  You might say it's the epitome of evangelization because it's connecting God and man together through grace.

We also received the gift of love at Baptism.  Scripture says, "There are in the end three things that last: faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love" (1Cor 13:13).  Love will make us more like God.  A king could marry a very poor woman and because of the relationship, because of the love, she becomes a queen.  When we enter into a relationship with God, it's almost like we become so one with Him that He shares His mind with us.  He shares His heart.  He shares His life.  He shares His Mother.  He shares His friends.  He shares His angels.  He shares everything.  He gives us everything, and He expects us to return everything to Him as well.  This is what love is all about, and this beautiful gift at Baptism helps us to do that. 

The third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is the great Gift of God's love. He totally transformed the people in the Upper Room on Pentecost.  They were never the same after receiving this great Gift of love. Those in the Upper Room received the tremendous grace of repentance.  Somehow the Spirit entered right into their hearts and began to show them truth and in that truth conviction.  They began to beat their breasts wanting to change, "What are we to do?" (Acts 2:37) 

Faith, hope, and love are essential for us if we are to be consciously aware of who we are.  We're baptized into the Trinity.  The Trinity dwells within us.  We have been raised up to a very high place, right into God's life.  And so intercession, by its very nature, is Trinitarian.  Intercession is to the Father, with Jesus, and in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Intercession is empowered by the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit directs us, energizes us, and gives His power for what we're praying for to happen.

Excerpt from Powers and Principalities Conference, "Sword of Power: new covenant prayer," Omaha, NE, 2003.