Heart Tracks - Baptized Living

     I recently came across this account from a believer in China who'd attended a baptismal celebration, for that is what it is to them.  During the ceremony, the new believer was asked 4 questions.  The first 3 were not very different from what one would hear in the western church; Do you believe in Jesus?  Has He forgiven your sins?  Do you promise to walk with Him always?  The fourth questions was asked by the one who was performing the baptism and who was the father of the young teen girl being baptized; "When they come into our house and take us away, when they beat us and try to get us to deny Him, will you still follow Jesus?"  I was deeply convicted when I read these words.  Are you?

    Here in the American church, baptismal services, like the receiving of communion, the making of marriage vows, and so on, are entered into almost without any thought.  You disagree?  Look at the results.  All 3 have the element of spoken or unspoken promises.  Yet, do we truly think of what it is we are saying, professing, and what those words really mean?  A good friend who pastored many years and would be termed a "success," in ministry once told me that he'd likely baptized more than a thousand people during the life of his ministry, but believed only a small number of them ever "lived baptized" afterwards.  If following Christ involved for you and I what it involves for these Chinese believers, and so many of our brethren throughout the world, would we follow Him at all?  In this age of costless Christianity here in the west, would we really vow to be His at the cost of everything, including our lives?  Would His power flow through our promises and keep us even in the midst of the severest of trials and persecution?  Or, would our promises, like so many of the "promises" made in these days, fade as the circumstances around us changed?  Would we be exposed as "costless Christians" or would we, like these Chinese brethren, "live baptized," no matter what the cost to us?

    Philippians 3:10 reads, "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death."  Everyone wants in on the power of His resurrection, few are willing to sign on to join Him in the fellowship of His sufferings.  We want Paul's power, we don't want His pain.  When Jesus sent Ananais to Paul after his Damascus road conversion, he said that He must "Show him how much he must suffer for my sake."  Even so, Paul followed Him with all His heart and love.  If the Lord were to do the same with us, would we?  To this point in our lives, what has it cost us to be His?  What have we endured for His sake?  Where have we entered into His death and been conformed to it?  If we've been baptized, are we
living baptized?  Have we made promises that consist mostly of words, or are they, like Paul's, like that young Chinese believer, written in, and sealed by His blood?  Many of us wish to "live large," He calls us to live Christ.  Which does our heart truly want?

Blessings,

Pastor O