Читать книгу Hear God's Voice - Andre Dellerba - Страница 9

Now one year after accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord, I became increasingly pressed from within by Holy Spirit and the scripture to be water baptized. Initially I was hesitant because I believed that I had already been baptized as a baby. But the more I tried to disprove it from scripture the more convinced I became that I needed to be. I could have taken the cowardly route and defaulted to, “my priest says I don’t have to therefore I won’t.” Then the word of God would be like a buffet, picking and choosing what I want. It was salvation that inspired water baptism and not baptism that inspired salvation (Acts 8:26-39). And just like the early church, the Apostles and especially like my Lord Jesus, I needed to make the choice to be baptized (Matt. 3:13-17; Luke 3:21-22). Something that every new priest needed to do, every believer is a priest (1 Peter 2:5; Lev. 8:6). An infant is not a priest. Seeing that I had already repented, accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord, the only logical next step was to be water baptized. It signified the burial of my old ways, and the raising up out of the water was Christ’s life living through me. A physical action done to let the physical and spiritual world know that I am not ashamed of the good news that Christ reconciled me back to God and He has ordained me as a priest.

Therefore I encourage you all to “repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2:38-39).