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Last sunday, I was baptised in my local church. I am thankful to God that I have finally made this decision. I remembered praying to God not so long ago to show me the meaning and significance of baptism in order for me to be baptised as soon as possible. I thank God that the time had come for me to be meaningfully baptised that I may proclaim him as my Lord and Saviour forevermore.
Since young, having observed fellow church members getting baptised at Changi Beach, I often questioned my parents about what Baptism was. I knew that Baptism was one of the things that a christian needs to go through, but despite having a vague idea of what it was, I never fully understood its meaning and significance.
At that time, my mum told me simply that after Baptism, one would be a child of God. But with my finite mind, I could not understand why one needs to be baptised in order to be a child of God. As I also thought that Baptism was something adults do, it though it should be laid aside until I grew older. The image of Baptism of someone going under water and rising out from it always stayed vivid in my mind. Along with it came fears of getting totally wet or even drowning during the Baptism, so I was pretty worried about getting baptised due to these fears.
As the years went by, I had the opportunity to watch many people getting baptised: my brother, my cousins, my grandparents. Among the first were my maternal grandparents. They were baptised by water sprinkling. When witnessing their baptism, I asked my mum once again why the baptism was in such a way. I was given the reply that my grandparents were old and so they cannot be baptised by immersion and so, I accepted the answer.
Later on as God revealed more and more about the significance of baptism to me, I realised that my childhood imagery of baptism via immersion into water helped me a lot in remembering what baptism truly meant.
It meant to me an old man being submerged, leaving his oldness behind and coming out of the water as a new man.
It is likened to the verse in 2 Corinthians 5:17 – ‘Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.’
The newness was important to me. It meant a new beginning, a new path, a new life. It meant to me renounciating my old ways, leaving them behind and living in newness of life for Jesus Christ, being borned again.
What an inexplicable joy and comfort it is to know that I’m new!
Despite the fact that I wasn’t baptism via immersion but sprinkling, this image of immersion stayed vivid in my mind during my baptism and it conveyed to me this important truth, reafirming to me that my past have been dealt with and a new hope is awaiting me as I embark on this new life.
Thank you God for giving a new life and a new start!
On this Sunday, 31/08/08, I would finally be getting baptised. My relatives and my Grandma would be there to witness my baptism. Frankly speaking, I’m having a lot of mixed feelings. On one hand, I’m looking forward to my baptism. On the other, I am not sure what to expect on that day. Nevertheless, it would be an important event in my life.
I would every much like to blog down what Baptism means to me when I have the time, but since I was told to draft out a testimony for the service, I would like to first include it down in the blog:
