My perspective of baptism
O NSaturday, last week, I accomplished one of the most - if not the most important - acts ever in a Christian’s life. I got baptised.
I gathered the courage to face and overcome one of most formidable, stumbling blocks the devil always puts in the way of many believers - reluctance to embrace Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, repent and be baptised. (The Great Commission mandate to Christ’s disciples)
I am a Sabbath-keeper (who grew up under an Anglican church attending family) who worships the Living and Loving God with the worldwide, Seventh Day Adventist Church. Why a Sabbath-keeping church, one might ask? There was always something alluring about the Fourth Commandment which drew me to it like how honey draws bees:
“Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: You, or your son, or your daughter, or your male servant, or your female servant, or your cattle, or your stranger who is within your gates.
“For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it..” - Exodus 20:8-11.
CHERISHED
After vigorously learning about the importance of keeping the Sabbath, as well as adhering to many other biblical doctrines, it was my long cherished dream to be finally baptised, and willingly embrace Christ’s sacrifice on the cross in our behalf. The Holy God, as usual, did not disappoint, but gave me my wish, last week, Saturday, on May 7, and on the 7th Day of the week! Glory be to God for being good and excellent all the time.
By virtue of my being baptised, I am now a fully-fledged member of the church.
I never envisaged myself being baptised one day in my sinful state, let alone being a fully registered member of any church. God works in mysterious ways, indeed. He accepts us, sinful as we are, unconditionally. As long as we are willing to change, is there anything too hard for the Lord? (Genesis 18:15)
Life’s harsh circumstances and my gradual realisation that our being in existence in this sinful and broken world has a greater purpose than merely being born to live your
One cannot separate religion and politics; they overlap at a number of points. Like any other institution, the church operates on principles or ideology, if you may. However, the church’s ideology is rather different. The church’s operation is firmly rooted on an ideology called fundamentalism.
PRINCIPLES
Fundamentalism can be defined as religious principles supported by literal truth of sacred texts. If you go against the principles, you go against God. Fundamentalism is complex in the sense that the church’s clients are sinners, yet the same principles it life, morally or otherwise, and then await death. We were not just solely created to live as we please, sidle emabele, sijangaze, without any accountability, and then simply die - period.
We must never lose sight of the fact that death is not the ultimate end of it all. There is still to be a resurrection of the dead, lapho kuyotekwa khona bonkhe bubi nebuhle we committed in this earth. None will escape that ominous appointment...The book of Daniel 12:2, concurs:
“And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt’’. Make no mistake about it each one of us will be summoned to stand before the Judgement Seat of Christ, and will be required to give an account for each one of our deeds - good or bad.
As I got to know more about God, and His Son Jesus Christ, it gradually dawned on me, bringing home the stark reality that, ‘‘Man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’’ (Matthew 4:4).
DETERMINED
As I relentlessly, and willingly opened up my heart and learnt about the truths of God’s Word, I was determined to confront head-on, my demon of refusing to change, instead, was determined to live my life in sync with His Word.
I had seen and had been a witness numerous times before, to how the power of God’s Word through His Son Jesus Christ, had changed many incorrigible, impenitent sinners murderers, sex workers, drug addicts and human traffickers, habitual thieves, etcetera, who, in the eyes and minds of mortal men, were beyond redemption. The power of God’s Word worked wonders in many of them. Today, some of them are respected shepherds of God’s flock.
It is also one of life’s stark realities that there are things, as humans, we cannot change. For instance, I might have big feet and view their size as an impediment to a successful life or a taint to my whole body physique; or as a laughing stock to the way I appeal operates under rejects sinners. God is love, therefore, the church is an institution of love but does it really emit love? We are all familiar with the biblical tale of Sodom and Gomorrah, and how the church uses that tale to reject certain people. I have heard people say things like ‘lona ufunani lasontfweni ngoba bekadzakiwe itolo’. It made me question if the church was for sinners or for the righteous ones. It is like the church wants ready-made Christians. Does a church operate on conditional love? Maybe the appropriate question to ask is; is there such a thing as unconditional love in this realm?
REPENTED
It is like the church says ‘you do not find God here, you come here when you have found God’. Ok, fine I was drunk yesterday, what if I repented from my wrongdoings? How long does it take for one to repent; seconds, hours or days? My point is, I may to other people. There is just no way I can change their size.
On the other hand, I could be an expert thief, hooligan, a con artist or a murderer. I might not change that unless there is a willingness in me to acknowledge first the immorality of what I donor did, and then summon the will and courage to change.
I might also be a ruler, leader, manager or supervisor, respectively, who oppresses and ill-treats those under his command. Deep down in my heart, my conscience never falters to accuse me about the fact that what I am doing is wrong and grossly unethical. Logic dictates that a time should come where I need to change and treat people morally, decently and humanely.
BAFFLED
The reader might be baffled and puzzled as to where this old geezer is leading to by this apparent ‘rambling rhetoric’. Please, dear reader, bear with me the theme of this article is possibly one of the most important I might have written over the years.
We reside in a very complex country where the accepted dictates of decent living, behaviour, and principles of morality; where respect for the inalienable human rights of the next person, rarely exists and are given little or no respect at all by those in positions of power. We are, without any shadow of doubt, lately, at the have sinned an hour ago and repented there and then, you see. By this, I am not encouraging people to plant their feet on deadly paths, I am simply saying we are not perfect beings. We strive, daily, to acquire the status of perfection.
CHALLENGE
The biggest challenge I have is; how can a church compromise its divine principles by allowing sinners without staining its image? How would the church allow well-known blood spillers crossroads of our political future as a country.
Too many immoral and deadly occurrences, painted in ‘officially’ unofficial colours, are taking place at regular and frenetic intervals in this once beautiful country - a country now turned into a deadly cauldron of hatred, and a vicious kingdom of vengeance and brutality. We are incessantly being drawn into being citizens of a nefarious fiefdom invisibly ruled by the Evil Ruler of this world - a former cherub Lucifer, turned into Satan - using human agents.
We had in the past claimed to be the ‘Pulpit of Africa’, but when one analyses our behaviours, this proves that we are none other than disciples of the Son of Perdition.
We just cannot call ourselves sons and daughters of a Loving God when cemeteries - known and unknown - are full of bullet-riddled bodies, some allegedly burnt beyond recognition who died tragic and horrific deaths, allegedly at the hands of security forces, last year June/July.
UNDEMOCRATIC
Our leaders, instead of extending the olive branch, and putting into motion the wheels of a dialogue, are prowling like nocturnal predators, and are allegedly using captured and politicised security forces and provocateurs to hunt down those perceived to be enemies of the undemocratic Tinkhundla System of Government.
On the other hand, both enemies of democracy and Tinkhundla System of Government have their properties relentlessly burnt by faceless arsonists. It gets puzzling now, by the day, as even properties of those perceived to be calling for change are being targeted by arsonists. Wither goest thou, oh! My beautiful country?
Our leaders continue to be at the forefront of blaspheming a Holy and Righteous God, who implores each one of us to worship Him in ‘Truth and in Spirit’. They grieve the Holy Spirit by mixing the worship of the Living God with that of demons.They greedily hoard the country’s wealth, leaving pitiful crumbs for the people to fight over.
On the one hand, they preach ‘peace’, while on the other hand, and drunkards without tarnishing the image of the house of God or becoming a place of sinners? The most conflicting part is that the church is said to be a place of sinners yet we ex-communicate sinners from our churches.
ISSUE
Men of the cloth help us, we need to dialogue about this issue. Senta njani lana ngoba phela ngiya esontfweni ngoba ngimanikiniki in the spiritual sense, yet ngiyacoshwa kutsiwe angikafaneli kuba khona? Uva batsi akusilo they violate with impunity the rights of the people as enshrined in our Constitution.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, saw right through the hearts of evil leaders when He chastised them: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness...” - (Matthew 23:27 ESV)
For too long, our people had decried the manner they had been (and are being) governed. They had persistently called for a change of attitude from the leadership of the country which would eventually usher in a political environment, where the ordinary man will live a decent life; enjoy his full rights as a citizen, as enshrined in the Constitution of the country, and be free from fear of police and army brutality. The people yearn to live under, and within a political hegemony where all citizens will be free to criticise any injustices or wrongdoings committed by the elite over those of lesser status. The people want an end to immoral acts like evictions, inequality before law, and many others. Such criticism being irrespective of their (perpetrators) political or otherwise, statuses; where citizens can constructively criticise leaders without any fear of any threats of being hauled before the courts of the land to answer on controversial, and/or trumped up charges.
HUMBLING
What is so difficult about embracing change or for one to gather the will to change? By humbling ourselves before the Living and Loving God, in Truth and in Spirit, calling upon the blood of Jesus Christ which was spilt on the cross as sacrifice for our sins, to wash away our sins. Our leaders need to confess their sins, repent and be truly baptised in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
They need to exhibit pious signs of true leadership. I like what www. fcgk-kanduyi.co.ke says about godly leaders: “The Bible is one of the best sources of practical knowledge that we can apply in our everyday lives. The wisdom it gives can help us discern things and make any decision right. And since God is one perfect example of a great leader, we can definitely learn great lessons of leadership from His words and teachings.
“Our leaders have the power to shape our nation and even the future of the next generation. Without the right leader, a country falls, people suffer, and hope is lost. That is why our freedom to vote or to choose a leader, whether they are national, international, local or organisational, is one of the most important privileges we cannot afford to waste..”
I pray we pray for sanity to prevail in the corridors of power, before it is too late. Peace! Shalom!
sontfo lela, kugcwele tidzakwa. The church is not a church when there are more sinners than the ‘righteous’? Is the church not a spiritual rehab for those spiritually crippled? But then again, there is an image and principles to protect. Is the church still a church when it does what God forbids or forbade? God was clearly fed up with the lifestyle led in Sodom and Gomorrah such that He destroyed that city and now you expect the church to allow what wounded God and pushed Him to the edge to destroy the city of Sodom and Gomorrah.
QUESTIONABLE
I bet one would argue that point. Another one would argue that the church’s love is questionable because it excludes the people who need it the most. Conditional love laced with hate is not love at all. It is all contradictory to me. May I point out that the aim is not blasphemy or disrespect, but to say here is a serious issue everyone seems to overlook, yet it needs to be openly discussed and an appropriate solution found.