For the purposes of understanding, whenever I use the word 'baptism' I am talking about a full immersion baptism.
With my baptism coming up next month, I felt I wanted to write this post to help anyone else out there who is searching for the answers I was searching for over the last few months. Obviously the place to look for any of these answers is The Bible, but it helped me a great deal to read of people's personal experiences of why they were being baptised for a second time.
I’ve always known that God exists and that Jesus died on the cross, you hear something enough times and it sinks in, but for me it was just blank facts, did I believe in God? Yes. Did I believe Jesus died on the cross? Yes.
So......at age 12, I knew baptism was the step that was expected of me. Coming from a family of believers in a strong brethren church, the minute you say you know Jesus died on the cross, you keep getting the vibe of 'when are you going to be baptised' I am sure it is subconcious, but I have even seen my Mum direct this vibe to her grandchildren.
The problem is, as I have said in a couple of my previous posts, we cannot save anyone, and I think my parents mission was, make sure the kids get saved and then baptised as soon as possible after that.
What everyone failed to miss was, that I had a head knowledge of God, not a heart knowledge. So, I could answer correctly when questioned by the elders of the church and was accepted for Baptism.
I can remember having regrets about what I had done almost immediately. Not least because I was constantly reminded of 'Christian's don't do this' and 'Christian's shouldn't do that'. I don't think I can ever recall a phrase that went 'God loves it when we...' or 'God rejoices over....' It was hard. I now had to try to live to the expectations of my parents Christian view without really 'getting it'.
After being married for a few years and having young children ourselves and being in a similar kind of church, I decided my family life was not going to pan out the same way it had been as a child. Despite not really having any interest in God and definately no relationship with him of sorts, I still wanted to attend a church, so we changed to a different one that had a lot of young families with children our ages.
Over the years we would make our best friends in this church. I started to see in the Christians around me they didn't just believe something, they were living with something, they knew God loved them, they knew Jesus had borne their sins on the cross and that made them so different to me, I didn't understand what it was, I believed in God, Jesus died etc.etc.
A few years ago I thought I want some of those feelings and experiences, so I was thrilled one day to have the picture from God “When you fall, I will catch you” That was exciting for me to have that revelation and I felt really blessed to have had that communication from God.
Over the next period of my life there were many times when I felt I was falling, and my faith that God was catching me wasn’t always strong enough, and I probably pushed Him away more than I let Him in, but I have some unbelievably good faithful friends, who refused to let me slip away and did everything they could to bring me into God’s presence again.
My next experience with God was when I was being prayed over and was delivered from a spirit of ‘Restraint’, that thing had had me tied up so much, I just wouldn’t let anyone in, least of all God, who I had never believed Loved me, the times I sat in the services, were spent wondering about why I still felt on the edge of what was going on, I wanted to be there but hadn’t quite got the connections right, God could not love me.
Eventually, earlier this year I fell my lowest, and true to His word God most definitely caught me! I had the experience of being covered with God’s love for me and it was a few days after that I accepted I was His daughter and that He accepted me just as I was.
So, am I being baptised again? I don't think so, I see the first one as a false testimony, so I didn't really symbolically bury my sins. Or as an infant christening in which the adults are in control of the decisions, the child cannot confess to be a follower of Jesus.
I have had a personal realisation of the truth.
I was more concerned with the possibility of ‘dying’ without God, that I hadn’t accepted I could ‘live’ with God.
Now that I know Jesus as my personal saviour, I want to let people know how important he is in my life, I know he listens to my prayers and I know I am important to him!
The difference for me now and the reason I’m being baptised next month, is because I believe God loves ME and that Jesus died to save ME!
