Monday, August 18, 2014

Identify

Next Sunday I’m going to walk into Lake Michigan, fully clothed, and be dunked under the water. There will be some clapping, maybe some shouting, and then I’ll walk back to shore.

I’m going to be baptized.

This may be confusing to some who have known me for a while. I made a commitment to Christ eight years ago and have been actively pursuing a life of discipleship and ministry for the last four. Why get baptized now?

Eight years ago, I didn’t think it was necessary for me to be re-baptized. After all, I had been baptized as an infant. So it never crossed my mind.

The fact that I am now being baptized does not mean that the decision I made eight years ago wasn’t the real thing. Baptism doesn’t provide me with salvation, but it publicly identifies me as a believer. Marriage is a commitment made visible by the exchanging of rings, and so my commitment to trust Christ as my Savior is about to be made visible by my immersion in the water.

Let me be perfectly clear. I’m choosing baptism now because I want there to be no question about who I am and whose I am. My baptism is a public declaration that I believe in the saving grace of Jesus Christ. I am a new creation. The old has gone; the new has come!

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”   Romans 6:1-11

Brittany

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Testify

As a young teen, I was weighed down by feelings of loneliness, low self-esteem, and bouts of depression. Not knowing how to cope with these feelings, I would cut myself to release some of the tension I was feeling. I felt trapped in my own mind, not knowing who to talk to or even how to talk about what I was going through.

At the time my family didn’t go to church a lot, but I had a friend who did. She invited me to her youth group, and it was there that I heard the gospel of a God who loved me and sent His son to die for my sin, releasing me from the grips death. I learned that this same God knew all about me and wanted to love me and lead me. In December of 2006, my freshman year of high school, I accepted Jesus Christ as the Lord of my life.

Shortly after that, my family decided to start going to church regularly. I learned how to talk about what I was feeling and spent a lot of time in prayer and journaling. I stopped cutting, but the depression is something I would wrestle with for years. Becoming a Christian didn’t mean that my life was instantly easy, but it meant that I had a hope to hold on to and a God who listened to my cries. Each day I had to choose to put my hope in Him again and again.

Today God is still working in me, sanctifying me and preparing me for a life of ministry. In a French village He spoke to me, saying, “Be like the sunflower, forever seeking my face.” That’s exactly what I plan to do for the rest of my life and for eternity.