I selected a Bible passage about being “saved” through baptism. I was baptized as a child but have no memory of that day.
For someone to be baptized, saved, as an adult this must be one of the most spiritual moments in their lives.
If you don’t mind sharing what was the moment like when you knew you had faith.
In my case it wasn’t a religious experience. I also can’t think of any one moment, but just gaining confidence over time that I could survive. Basically waking up one day knowing I can make it in life. I can point to my first trip into New York City. Feeling overwhelmed by the all the sights, smells, and all the energy around me. That may have been the first time I really felt I belonged some where.
Acts 2: 36-39 (New International Version)
36 Therefore let all Isreal be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.
37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers what shall we do?
What a terrible moment that must have been. Recognition that mankind has crucified the son of their God.
38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off-for all whom the Lord our God will call.
It must have been a beautiful moment for those who choose to be baptized and saved.
The World Through My Eyes 
14 comments
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May 6, 2009 at 11:28 pm
danielle
Hey Ed —
I’ve missed about a week in blogworld and seems like I’ve missed so much.
My parents were Lutheran when I was born so I was sprinkled as an infant. As I got older, I found my own faith in Jesus. I went to Africa as a teenager on missions. I was able to be baptized as a teen in Botswana with some people that we shared the Gospel with by a missionary that I admire. It was amazing.
May 7, 2009 at 12:41 am
edfromct
Missionary work is one ot the best expressions of love of God I can think of. Flying off to Africa as a teen, that does take faith.
Being baptized with a group, each of you sharing in the love of that moment, must have been an amazing experience.
I think we all have to find our own faith. Others can help guide us, but faith is I think a personal experience.
May 7, 2009 at 4:59 am
lovewillbringustogether
Like you Ed – i was baptised as a kid (more because it was the ‘done’ thing to do than any real spiritual belief of my parents) and i have no recollection of such an event – it meant absolutely nothing to me at the time.
Reading more of the Bible (in part because of you and your thoughts that have often found resonance in my own!) i am coming to a better understanding of this part of Christian Faith.
I found it interesting there is NO mention of the word ‘baptism’ in the Old Testament? Baptism is from a greek word, baptizein. There may be a word in Hebrew that means something like it?
Baptisma Pyros was the phrase used by the Greeks and meant: the grace of the Holy Spirit as imparted through baptism (of fire rather than of water which was how John baptised and others copied)
Again there is that word ‘repent’ which we translated from the Greek word Metanoia (change one’s mind) in Acts 2:38
If someone can truly wash clean their body through immersion of water and change their mind (and by doing so change their heart also) completely in the process then the Holy Spirit will come to them (in His Time, rather than ours).
As i mentioned elsewhere however, i feel there is a very great deal to that that many simply ‘wash over’ and fail to adequately understand.
That ‘beautiful experience’ comes with a very hefty ‘price tag’ that many have refused to pay and some never even realise – at least until it is very likely ‘too late’.
Some seem to think Christ paid EVERYTHING for us and we now get it all for ‘free’ and act like they can go on living doing almost whatever they want to without concern for what they do – or think – while down here.
It is as if we can follow Christ in word only, while keeping our old ways and old thoughts – or old WAY of thinking/feeling/understanding – and still be His, paid for by His Blood because that is what we WANT to believe.
I don’t think such people actually follow Him very well, if at all.
The ‘Gift’ cannot be bought or earned, however it surely comes with a cost – to those who were born on and who live on and in the Earth – a very great cost indeed. If it is fully accepted and the ‘cost’ paid in full then the Reward promised to our spirit will be greater still.
i would caution any that take Christ’s suffering too lightly and believe we are to be free of suffering as a result to be VERY careful if they expect to be confessed of by Christ before God’s Angels and God Himself at the time of Judgement.
Unless we ‘change our mind’ (repent Truly) and think and believe in a NEW way we will suffer the old way to death.
Forgive the tone of the comment – i think you chose a Great Topic and Hope more thoughts are Raised as a result 🙂
<B
May 7, 2009 at 5:21 pm
edfromct
“I found it interesting there is NO mention of the word ‘baptism’ in the Old Testament? Baptism is from a greek word, baptizein. There may be a word in Hebrew that means something like it?”
I found the following on a site “Jews For Jesus, A Messianic Jewish Perspective”, which may be relevent. I quote from an article written in 1983.
http://www.jewsforjesus.org/publications/issues/2_10/baptism
“Baptism does not change Jews into Gentiles any more than it changes a man into a woman, or a black African into a blonde Swede. Why then is there so much misunderstanding and fear among our Jewish people concerning baptism? One needn’t search very far to find the answer.
History contains shocking accounts of forced baptisms of Jews by so-called “Christians” during the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition. Given the choice of baptism or death, many Jews were executed by people who never knew the Christ they claimed to serve. Understandably then, our Jewish people often regard baptism as the final act of assimilation into an enemy camp that has a long and bloody history of persecuting Jews. Unfortunately, people who jump to this conclusion fail to see three important truths.
The first truth is that real Christianity is not a pagan, anti-Semitic religion, but the gathering together of both Jewish and Gentile believers to the Jewish Messiah and to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
Back to your comment:
“If someone can truly wash clean their body through immersion of water and change their mind (and by doing so change their heart also) completely in the process then the Holy Spirit will come to them (in His Time, rather than ours).”
I view baptism as the final step in the process of becoming a Christian (including Catholics and any other group that fits under this label(?) ). My perception is that only God can judge if your heart has truly changed. The cerominies performed by men do not prove you have fully surrendered your will to God.
“Some seem to think Christ paid EVERYTHING for us and we now get it all for ‘free’ and act like they can go on living doing almost whatever they want to without concern for what they do – or think – while down here.
It is as if we can follow Christ in word only, while keeping our old ways and old thoughts – or old WAY of thinking/feeling/understanding – and still be His, paid for by His Blood because that is what we WANT to believe.”
My understanding is that Jesus died to redeem mankind for all the sins committed prior to Jesus’s death, and for the act of killing him. All the sins since than can only be redeemed by the indiviudals who committed them.
“The ‘Gift’ cannot be bought or earned, however it surely comes with a cost – to those who were born on and who live on and in the Earth – a very great cost indeed. If it is fully accepted and the ‘cost’ paid in full then the Reward promised to our spirit will be greater still.”
“Unless we ‘change our mind’ (repent Truly) and think and believe in a NEW way we will suffer the old way to death.”
What is “cost” you refer to in the above? Fully surrendering our will to God? Is this the new way of thinking you refer to?
“Forgive the tone of the comment – i think you chose a Great Topic and Hope more thoughts are Raised as a result ”
No need to apolgize for the tone of your comment. I hope every one will post how they truly feel.
May 7, 2009 at 5:28 pm
edfromct
One the question of a Jewish ceremony equivalent to baptism I found the following on the “The Institute for Halakhic Conversion” site:
http://www.halakhicconversion.org/articles/article6.html
From Article 6 Beoming a Jew:
“A potential male convert must first perform a ritual circumcision (with the intent of conversion) to make his body one with the Jewish Nation. Following this, a convert must properly immerse his or her self into a Mikvah (ritual bath) in the presence of a Beis Din (Jewish Court). The final act done for conversion is the acceptance of the divinely ordained six hundred and thirteen commandments, which a Jew is obligated to observe. When the Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem, a convert was required to bring certain sacrificial offerings as a means of finalizing the conversion.”
May 8, 2009 at 1:03 am
lovewillbringustogether
i agree with you Ed – God is the one qualified to judge if our heart has changed… just because we desperately want to believe it has does not mean way down deep every ‘fault’ has been removed and that we may not at some point again become subject to that flaw.
the ‘cost’ i referred to is our death to the things of this world, not necessarily our physical death, but managing to completely put every deisre for all ‘mortal’ corruptible things we live with every second of our life ‘away’ from us and putting first and foremost, in ALL things, (family, personal pleasure, financial support, etc) God’s Will. It costs a great deal to put your entire ‘life’ on the line and be subject only to Him and His Will.
It can turn you into a complete outcast in a society, rejected, ridiculed and shunned by those who are afraid of being shown to be ‘inferior’ in their professed Faith.
Truly folllowing His Will can pose a problem since so few of us have learned how to listen to Him before listening first to the ‘me’ inside of us. Even when we think we are doing His will what we are more often doing is what we THINK is His Will is because of who we are and how we were raised.
Jesus came to separate us from those of our own family, our own house, so that we become NEW IN Him, in Spirit and not in flesh.
The books of Paul in the Bible are quite clear on this and that it was able to be done – or at least begun – right now and we were to live in a new way that had not been possible before the Death of Christ’s Flesh Body on Earth.
i see baptism as a one off symbolistic representation of our being washed clean in the waters so that we can start afresh and is different to the symbolic eating of His Body and drinking of His Blood that is to be done ‘in rememberance of me’ so that we do not ‘forget’.
i don’t believe that an act of symbolism is the same as being converted with the Holy Spirit that is solely from God, not man.
What i believe symbolism and faith in it CAN DO however is to make us more ‘open’ to things of the Spirit so that it is not a fruitless exercise – it is just not the same as the actual intent.
and i am glad to hear you want all to share what they Truly feel/believe. 🙂
<B
May 8, 2009 at 3:19 pm
edfromct
“the ‘cost’ i referred to is our death to the things of this world, not necessarily our physical death, but managing to completely put every deisre for all ‘mortal’ corruptible things we live with every second of our life ‘away’ from us and putting first and foremost, in ALL things, (family, personal pleasure, financial support, etc) God’s Will. It costs a great deal to put your entire ‘life’ on the line and be subject only to Him and His Will.”
That can be a great price to pay. As I understand it, that is the cost you must be prepared to pay, when you surrender your will to God. MY understanding is that believers think that when you do use God as the prism through which you view the world, you will see the all beauty in his creation. That you will come to love all life, as he does.
I don’t believe we need anyone else’s eyes through which to see the beauty in life. I believe we humans are capable of learning that all life is precious, without any other intervention. It does take a truly open mind, which can be as hard to come by, as becoming truly open to the Holy Spirit you speak of.
May 9, 2009 at 2:58 am
lovewillbringustogether
Two thoughts on this:
One – i don’t think people using God as a prism for Their Viewing is quite what Christ had in mind for His followers – though i am certain many who believe they follow Him do just that 😦
Two: while i think it MIGHT be possible for mankind (without a belief in God) to one day see the Beauty and interconnection/importance of ALL life on Earth, i believe that unless they at the same time understand that they are not the most important thing/entity in the Universe and they owe something ‘Higher’ true allegiance, subservience, they will not be doing themselves True Justice. And YES! – it would be a difficult thing to achieve as you indicated.
Still – it’s a nice thought (desperate Hope?) all the same 😉
May 10, 2009 at 1:51 pm
edfromct
I agree that mankind needs to understand we are not superior to any other creature on earth, that we don’t not have dominion over them.
We are not superior, or inferior, to any other organism. We have a brain that gives us the potential to learn this, if we use it properly. It is when we close our minds to the world around us that we lose this perspective.
May 7, 2009 at 7:27 am
ric booth
Ingredients:
A baby laughing, a hug, grandma’s homemade apple pie, down-hill skiing, a warm beach, a sunset, as sun rise, standing on top of a mountain, scoring the winning point as time expires, sex, the smell of hot-from-the-oven cookies, the first drop of a roller coaster, holding my children in the delivery room, watching my step-dad die, my grandfather’s funeral, my grandmother’s funeral, losing control of your car on a crowded highway, milk-out-the-nose laughing, standing on the edge of a cliff during an eathquake.
Fold the ingredients together in a large mixing bowl with handles.
Pick the bowl up over your head and dump the entire mixture onto yourself.
May 7, 2009 at 4:29 pm
edfromct
Ric, I can see your a poet. 🙂
“Pick the bowl up over your head and dump the entire mixture onto yourself.”
I can also you have spent a lot of time with children. 🙂
It sounds like experiencing all of life in just one moment. It sounds like a beautiful, exhilarating, moment.
May 9, 2009 at 4:50 am
Rain
It is difficult for me to pin-point the moment I first had faith, as I was brought up in a christian home. I don’t think I understood much of what the faith really was about for a long time as my experience of it was more about legalism and shame. I had many ‘God- experiences’ through out my life which pretty much settled my belief in God to an unwavering extent even if I didn’t always follow God. I would say I really truly came to God in the right way with a good understanding only about a year ago and everything before that was perhaps preparation or God just not letting go of me even when I had let go of Him.
May 11, 2009 at 12:56 pm
mandythompson
Ed:
I became a Christian when I was a teenager. Of course, being from the “bible belt” of the south, I’d been going to church all my life. I knew God was real, but I wouldn’t say I was truly a believing & dedicated Christian until I was a teenager.
(I think there’s a difference between people who believe God is real and people who have given over their lives to follow His will.)
Anyway, shortly after my decision to give my life over to Jesus, I went through some teachings at my church, that taught me the basics of the Christian faith. Then I was baptized.
I don’t see baptism as a means to salvation, or else Jesus would not have promised the criminal on the cross next to Him that he’d be in paradise with Jesus… I see baptism as a public confession/ritual of faith, that symbolizes being buried and raised with Christ in his death/resurrection, while also symbolizing the spiritual cleansing He gives us.
I love your bible study idea here! Thank you for sharing with us. 🙂
May 11, 2009 at 2:01 pm
edfromct
Your are right Mandy, there is a difference between accepting faith as truth, and living your life by it.
Rituals, ceremonies, are part of a process and symbolize a commitment to faith. The strength of this commitment will be judged by whether you carry it forward for the rest of your life.
I’ll promise to keep posting my Bible studies, if you continue sharing your songs with us on your site.