Remember Your Baptism

Thirteen years ago today, I accepted Christ as my Savior and was baptized in the more-than-slightly-chilly waters of Laurel River Lake. I never expected to be sitting behind the senior minister's desk just over a decade later, I have to admit, but those years have been a period of immense spiritual growth for me. My baptism may have been the beginning of my walk with Christ, but it certainly isn't the whole journey. Nevertheless, today is a day I mark every year, the one day I can never forget.

Every Christian should have such a moment, a day on which we remember our baptisms, the day we look back and say, "That day, I became a Christian." Martin Luther was known to place so great an emphasis on his baptism as a form of assurance he would frequently exclaim "I am baptized!" when confronted with doubt or temptation.

Some Christians say their salvation came to be after a long process of placing trust in Jesus; there was no single "altar call" sort of moment, only a gradual coming to belief. Even so, such a person should be baptized, and that act of the washing of regeneration can truthfully be understood as the moment of new creation and putting on Christ.

Today, then, as I celebrate being a "teenage Christian," remember your baptism. Regain the excitement and joy, reclaim the evangelistic fervor you had as you came out of the water. Be that happy again; be that bold again -- for you are baptized!