On my Re-Baptism...

I was baptized today.  No, it wasn’t my first time, nor was I baptized as a baby the first time, but as a 12-year-old.  I really felt the Holy Spirit that time, the amazing feeling of His presence in my young life.  Until recently I had no desire to be baptized again, fearing it would somehow discount that first experience.  

 

I have a good friend who was baptized as an infant, then again a few years ago, and she told me how special and wonderful it felt, but honestly, I didn’t really feel that way today.  It felt great to make a public declaration of my faith, especially as a shy person who never even sang out loud in church for the first 15 years I attended as an adult.  

It was meaningful to be baptized by pastors I love and respect, before a church family I love, but I don’t feel (and frankly, didn’t expect to feel) the newness of life I felt when I was 12 and the Holy Spirit flooded my heart and made me know I am a child of God.  To have that same experience as when I was a kid would discount the decades that I’ve known Jesus as my Lord and Savior.  The Holy Spirit’s lived in me for many years, and floods my heart quite often, giving me eyes to see, in increasing measure, what I once was blind to.  I see God working all things together for good and I want others to see and know the abundant life that Jesus offers.  This baptism didn’t take away from my first baptism because I am not that same person who was baptized nearly 40 years ago.  God doesn’t change, but I have.  This time I know Him better, and I am better able to obey and proclaim Him.

The thief on the cross didn’t get baptized, but he professed that Jesus was innocent and wrongly punished.  He admitted he and the other thief deserved their punishment and asked that Jesus remember him when He got to His kingdom.  “This day you will be with me in paradise,” Jesus told the thief.  Jesus died on the cross for us.  God offered His perfect Son as the once-for-all blood sacrifice to atone for our sins, “that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16).”  If you were baptized before you were old enough to make a conscious decision to follow Christ, pray about getting baptized again.  You won't regret it.

Jesus saved me back when I was seven and asked Him into my heart, and He provided me His Spirit back then.  My first baptism showed me the power of the Holy Spirit moving and working within me.  

 

I’m grateful for this baptism today, which was about me overcoming my fear of proclaiming my faith and making an outward show that Jesus is my Lord.  This baptism shows me the power of the Holy Spirit moving and working through me, perhaps to better use my voice and my talents for the glory of God the Father.  It’s no longer about me sitting in awe watching, but perhaps stepping forward and saying, “Here am I, Lord. Send me.”  (Yikes! Um, not really Lord, just let me paint and write, okay? LOL)

 

The Holy Wow?  This reminds me of over a year ago, when I was praying for God to show Himself to a family who needed Jesus.  He told me, “You show Me to them.”  I found the slip of paper I’d written that statement on in my Bible last Wednesday.  Yes, Lord.