Paul tells us to bury our old selves when we are baptized (Romans 6). That goes hand in hand with Jesus’ call for those who would follow Him to “take up their cross” (Mark 8:34).

In other words, you must take your old ideas, your old passions, your old infatuations, your old wants and wishes and anything else that you love more than Christ, and brutally, finally and totally crucify them to an old rugged cross.

How? Repentance.

Then, you take that dead as a doornail corpse, that was your old life, and you bury it in a grave.

How? Baptism.

Then, when you rise from that watery grave, you begin a NEW walk in a NEW life.

That’s all well and good, but don’t forget: When you come out of the water, the world will be just the same as it was when you left it. And it’s very easy to slip back into old habits. We sometimes try to dig up our old lives and slip back into them like nothing happened.

But something did happen: That old life died.

Leave it buried.

Start new.