Baptized

Acts 10:47 "Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?"

This verse always reminds me of the early part of my walk with Christ. I came to know the LORD on April 2nd, 1997, ten days before my mother passed away. God has allowed many things to shape my walk with Him, and I know that though it was never His desire for any of us to be without the parenting necessary to become the man or woman of God He has made us for, He has certainly used it all for good (Romans 8:28).

Shortly after I "got saved," my youth leaders and other church members started to ask when I was going to get baptized. My response was simply that I already had been, as my family attended a church where I was baptized as an infant. My mother's last request of me (the night I asked the Lord Jesus Christ to be my Lord) was to assure her that it would be honoured. Before I go on, I must say here that it is still honoured as a dedication of my life into the hands of God. My parents trusted God to lead me into His presence, and today I am grateful that they did.

Another response I would use was that I had received the Holy Spirit, and I had, and so obviously He honoured this baptism. That was until I was preparing a speech for my high school speech class (public school!?) on the differences in how churches baptize and when. I came upon this verse and God pricked my heart to be baptized again, immediately. I couldn't wait until the weekend when I could ask my pastor to baptize me. It was like my heart was literally burning inside of me, and the only way to get rid of that ache was obedience, immediately! That Sunday, in late March of 1999, I was baptized on Palm Sunday evening.

Since then I have continued to grow in my understanding of what that means for my life. I know, and did at the time, that it was symbolic of dying with Christ and raising to new life with Him. What I didn't understand was that it has a much more real significance. God has made us a whole people, and everything we do impacts everything else. If we take part in a sacrament (something that is an obvious connection between spiritual and physical reality, as our whole lives should be) we are actually changed. I had reached a place where I could not longer grow until the old man was buried and dead, and I had risen with Christ. That burning was also a labor pain of sorts purging me out and allowing a new life to begin. I literally felt like I was stuck and could not grow more unless something changed, and God offered that in obedience to His provision. Baptism is not simple a command that we follow as a part of the ritual in the church. It is much more a provision God has made by which we can lay to death the old man, stained by sin, and come alive again, really alive this time, with the new man of Christ as our life!

This passage is dear to me as I read it. I always remember that day of sitting in the high school library reading it and instantly being pricked in my heart. Praise God for moving in that unexpected setting and way. If you are reading this and have not yet been baptized, please talk to your pastor about this. If you have, remember what that day was like. It may not have held the emotional weight that I have portrayed here, but God was at work, and we can praise Him for the provision of freedom. God be praised!