Friends For The Journey

Jan. 21, 2007 – hi friends:

I have been baptized three times in my life. The first time was after I responded to an invitation by Billy Graham at age 12 in Columbus, Ohio… I was baptized in a creek in Columbus, the same one that Debbie was baptized in.

By age 17-18, I fell away from the faith, due to an inadequate understanding of God’s grace and the lack of spiritual mentoring in my life …roughly four years and hippie three communes later, I started dating Debbie. She was a sweet little Baptist Sunday school teacher and I was agnostic socialist. I knew I loved her, and I knew that she would not marry me unless I made a profession of faith (God had told her she was going to be a mission’s secretary someday in Miami — imagine that!). I went forward in church and prayed, “God, I don’t know if you are real, but if you are…I want to know you!”. I was baptized for the 2nd time soon after…. but without experiencing any real internal change.

About a year later, after we married (it worked!), I had a powerful experience with Christ. He actually answered my prayer of unbelief. After making a full commitment to follow Him, I read Matt. 28:18, and decided I didn’t want to just be a “Christian” or “believer”, I wanted to be a “disciple” — a “disciplined student or follower of Jesus”. I began devoring everything I could find about following Jesus… I began meeting with a spiritual mentor on a weekly basis. I would read large portions of scripture in a single setting… I gave my life over to serving others and attempting to be faithful in little things.

Along the way, a desire arose within me to be baptized again….not in order to cover any insecurity about my salvation, but as an expression of my firm commitment to die to my old way of life, and to become a committed follower of Jesus… a “love-slave” to Him in Old Testament terminology.

As they say, the “3rd time is the charm” ... it finally worked! I told the guy who baptized me, to hold me under just a little longer to make sure!

Baptism is not must an empty religious exercise or ritual… it is a visible metaphor of a radical discontinuity of life…a rupture in time… a turning around and going in a totally new direction… death to self and life from death…

Matthew 28:19:
“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them ….”

Below is a partial outline of one of Bill Gothard’s studies on the commands of Christ. I highly recommend his original studies which you can find at his web site, Gothard.com.
joseph

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#47 BAPTIZE MY DISCIPLES

Matthew 28:19: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

What is baptism?
Greek baptizo: “to immerse, submerge for a religious purpose.” It is from a derivative of the word bapto, which means “to dip, dip in, immerse” and “to whelm, i.e., cover wholly with liquid.”

What are the types of baptism?
1) Baptism for Repentance: the baptism of John (Matt. 3:6; Mark 1:4; Luke 3:4). 2) Baptism into Christ’s death: a public declaration of faith in Christ. It is following the Lord into death to self. (Rom. 6:3-5; 1 Cor. 15:29; Gal. 2:20; Matt. 20:22-23). 3) The baptism of the Holy Ghost (Luke 3:16; Acts 1:5: Acts 2:37-39; 1Peter 3:21).

What is the function of baptism?
The Baptism is a public affirmation of our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for our salvation. If we believe on Jesus we should be baptized. If do we not believe, there is no point to being baptized (Rom. 10:10; Matt. 3:14-15). The function of baptism can be compared to the birth process. Initially there is conception and labor (Gal. 3:19). Then the birth takes place. We are born again by the Spirit and by the Word when we believe (John 3:3-6; 1Peter 1:23). After birth, the newborn baby is washed just as we are washed by the blood of the Lamb (Rev. 1:5) We are also washed by the Word of God (John 17:17; Eph. 5:26; 1Cor. 6:11; Heb. 10:22; Gal. 3:27).