Baptism in a Bathtub-The day love cast out fear
WOW, what an unexpected treasure Saturday night. We have brothers and sisters who worship around a bonfire! We roast hot-dogs and marshmallows. One of the brothers wanted to be baptized.
The amazing thing to me is─He, like me, got overwhelmed with fear and feelings of inferiority. This is the lie of our enemy!
You see, we will NEVER be good enough in ourselves! We are good only good enough through the atonement of Jesus Christ (1 John 4:10).
I know so many who have had a similar experience prior to their own baptism.
1 John 4:18 (Amplified) says, “There is no fear in love (dread does not exist), but full-grown (complete, perfect) love turns out of doors and expels every trace of terror!”
It was a beautiful thing to watch the saints encourage him and to see love cast out fear.
We all piled into the bathroom and watched our dear brother go into the water. Hallelujah! What a wonderful experience.
There are so many times the Lord tells us to “fear not.” I encourage you to do a word search on it. Fear does come in many forms. Walk in faith and obedience. The Lord gives courage through His love and Spirit.
In much of the nineteenth century conversion for many American Evangelicals came at “the altar call.” This was so much a part of the conversion process that when asked when they were saved many would respond in terms such as, “I walked the aisle in 1966.” At least in the best of these, they would not actually think that walking the aisle after a sermon is what made them a Christian. Rather, it was simply the way in which they first expressed their faith in Christ. “Walking the aisle” was a very real part of the conversion process. And since the reality (faith) was so tightly bound to its form of expression (walking the aisle in a church), the one could simply be spoken of in terms of the other. The terms became almost interchangeable.
The altar call was unknown in New Testament times. For the earliest Christians it was in baptism that believers first gave expression to their faith in Christ. And in this way baptism was part of the conversion process. A simple glance through the book of Acts will bear this out. When someone came to faith in Christ that faith was immediately expressed in submission to the waters of baptism. There the new believer expressed his faith (Col. 2:12), “calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22:16) and making “appeal to God for a good conscience” (1Pet. 3:21).
The apostles were very clear in teaching that salvation was by faith alone, apart from works of any kind — whether works of personal merit or works of ceremony, such as circumcision. See for example Rom. 4:1-13. Justification is by faith alone. And the apostles were not contradicting themselves when they spoke in terms of being “buried with Christ in baptism” (Rom. 6:4; Col. 2:12) or as baptism “saving” (1Pet. 3:21). If baptism is the expression of saving faith, then “faith” and “baptism” in certain contexts can be spoken of almost interchangeably. “Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name” (Acts 22:16) is equivalent to “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved (Acts 16:31). The apostles were not teaching baptismal regeneration. They were speaking of faith in terms of its form of expression. The symbol and the reality are so tightly related that one can be spoken of in terms of the other.
Praise the Lord for this dear brother!!