Baby Baptism: Is It Really Necessary?

Baby baptism is probably one of the most widely misunderstood rituals in the Christian (and many other) faiths. Almost all Christian churches practice Baptism in some form or another. Baptism comes from a Greek word baptizo which loosely translated means to dip, a washing or immersion. However baptism for babies is not a practice that was performed by the churches in the first century.

According to various chapters in the New Testament as you come into faith with Christ then the next few steps would be confession and then baptism. The process of baptism symbolizes the dying, burial and rising of Christ. Through baptism the symbolism of these acts are reenacted.

Baptism is done for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38), it washes away our sins (Acts 22:16). We are baptized so that will God will resurrect us from death (Colossians 2:12, Romans 6:3-6).

So when should someone be baptized?

In order to answer this question properly we will need to refer to the scriptures. The Bible clearly tells us that children are considered to be pure in the eyes of the Lord. The scriptures teach us that in order to enter God's kingdom we need to become more like children and open our hearts (Matthew 18:3, Mark 10:15).

The baby baptism advocates interpret passages such as Psalm 51:5 as saying that we are born sinners. However with proper interpretation would say that we are just born into a sinful world. A close look at a couple of passages tells us that children do not have sin as a result being born and that sin is a result of lust and therefore turns into sin. See Ezekiel 18: 20; James 1:14-15. As children grow older they are filled with secular knowledge and through this process their hearts become hardened. This is when the blood of Christ is needed.

Being able to recite the word of God is very different to comprehending it properly. Whilst young children might mean well when they ask if they are ready to be baptized they do not know any better. The choice to become a Christian is one of the gravest and most serious decisions you can make; is your child really ready for that kind of commitment?

So who are the real candidates for baptism?

Anybody who is prepared to hear the word of God confess their sins, and ready to live a life committed to Christ can be baptized. Another place to learn who can be baptized is searching through the book of Acts. It is known as 搕he book of conversions.? The reason why is it shows how several people were told how to be saved and become a member of the church.

Children should be introduced to the word of God at the earliest possible stage in their lives. Parents will need to take care to strike a balance between guiding their child and supporting the child's spiritual development. Any commitment they make to Christ is their own and should be something which they would have independently chosen for themselves.

It's common for parents to push their children to agree with their religious beliefs. However well-intentioned it is sad because in the end this undermines the child's spiritual development. To baptize someone who is not ready is to do them a grave disservice.

By waiting until they are ready to really understand the commitment they are agreeing to; the ritual becomes more meaningful for everyone involved, thus also approved of by God.

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Are Calamities, Catastrophes and Disasters Really Judgments from God

Thirty five years of Bible reading has convinced me that God is not nit-picky. He doesn抰 judge every little infraction we make as we go minute by minute through the day. In fact to believe that he does borders on the insane and comes well within the borders of frivolous nonsense. What is not frivolous is that God will judge an individual, a collective group, a nation or the entire world for behavior that has 損assed beyond the mark.?He is marvelously patient but in common vernacular, He ain抰 no fool.

You抳e got to ask the question, if man judges, punishes, and corrects his offspring why wouldn抰 God? Are we greater than Him? Using the Bible lets take this question to task and that will help us to do a much needed reality check in this area.

In the book of Deuteronomy 28 1-14 there are over a dozen pronouncements of blessings to anyone who chooses to heed God抯 commandments and adhere to them faithfully as the live each day. Conversely, there are over fifty verses of curses and calamities for those who decide they are going to ignore His commands and live any way they like, Deuteronomy 28:15f. Things like madness, hemorrhoids and terrors are included in the heap just to name a few.

Any theologian worth his salt knows that the ongoing judgment for sin in this world is a sure thing and it is the very reason there is a thorn on the rose. The only question remaining is which of the disasters and other calamities that befall us are his direct judgments. This is much harder to answer.

I am an evacuee from hurricane Katrina and Rita, was that a judgment from God. I have pondered this question a lot. When I consider the areas hit by the many hurricanes in this country in the last few years I noticed one thing they all had in common. They are all play lands and resort areas in one way or another. The Florida resorts and beaches, the Gulf coast casinos and hotels, the New Orleans French Quarter and the Mexican resort play land of Cancun. Could this have anything to do with it, perhaps?

I don抰 think I抦 wise enough to know for sure if all that destruction is God抯 judgment but I am inclined to think it is. When the tsunami struck the coasts of Indonesia and other Asian countries I pondered the same question. I have become more inclined to see that disaster as Gods judgment only because I discovered a little known fact about that area only a few days after the Tsunami struck. That part of the world has the largest black market children for sale activity in the world. How large, twelve billion dollars a year large. Couple that fact with this verse of scripture fond in Matthew 18:6 and, you be the judge. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

God is not Santa Claus or a doting old grandfather in the sky who sloppily bestows endless benefits and gifts to us while ignoring our injustice and excesses. It may be a bit presumptuous to call every calamity that arises, a judgment of God but it is far more presumptuous to think he will stand idly by while we sin and party ourselves into a stupor.

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Is It Really Possible To Find Real Happiness?

I used to ask myself this question 揾ow do you find real happiness?day after day after day. It just seemed to be so elusive and as I looked around at other people who seemed to be so happy I just wondered why I was so different ?or was I?

I did not enjoy the drudgery of going to a job that I didn抰 particularly like but when I began to work for myself I thought that that would change ?I did enjoy what I was doing and although I had some happy times there was still something missing.

I read a lot of books and decided that if I earned lots more money then that would make the difference and then I would be truly happy and would then have a peace and contentment in my life ?well I did earn more one year but that didn抰 find me the happiness I yearned for. It must have been that I hadn抰 earned enough and this went on and on until I eventually realised that no matter what I earned it just didn抰 give me these real feelings of happiness and contentment ?not permanently anyway because of course there were the temporary highs when I was able to go cruising around the Caribbean.

I had a lovely family and yes of course I enjoyed life but as before there really was something missing ?it was like there was a vast hole in my life and I just didn抰 know how and where I was going to find what I was looking for.

We all have out highs and lows in life and I think the time has to be right for that miraculous event to take place and boy that sure happened to me ?it was like a bolt out of the blue and totally unexpected ?I had found my maker, the Lord God when I just had not been looking for him at all ?rather HE found me.

I just had to write my experiences down because I抳e just never felt so happy and at peace in my entire life ?of course I get some bad days, don抰 we all but they are so rare it抯 incredible ?this record of my experiences were read by others who said that I should turn them into a book because of what it might do for others ?well I抳e done just that and some of the 揻eedback?I抳e had has made me cry tears of joy ?I just bless the day that Jesus came into my life.

A recent testimonial, exerts of which are included below, show just why I want this book to reach and touch people who are looking for what I抳e found.

I LAVISHED your book. My life was in shambles; my wife had divorced me and tonight I was in such a state of despair that I had rung my Mother to tell her that suicide was my only option - after reading your book I have a peace about me that I have not had since I was 19 and I'm 56 now. Thank you thank you for allowing God to speak through you to me - I now feel a complete relief from all the pain and misery I have known for the past 37 years and I thank you for saving my life - actually GOD SAVED MY LIFE but you threw me the life preserver - may God continue to bless you, your family and your ministry.

Roy Thompson, Atlanta, Georgia - royjrthompson@bellsouth.net

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What are you really missing out on?

Life is all about experience. Most of us have quite a vast intellectual knowledge of the world. Intellectually we know what's available to us as human beings and although most people haven't got everything they want, they at least have an intellectual knowledge of it. They know what exists and they know what is available. There is, however a huge difference between intellectual knowledge and experiential knowledge.

We all long to experience the objects of our desire. Knowing simply isn't enough. We want to feel and we want to experience that which we know by engaging all our senses and all of our nervous system to fully comprehend that which exists only as impulses in our minds. Until and unless you actually experience something it will remain an idea and a concept that will always leave you wanting more. Experience is the process by which you turn your intellectual knowledge into a physical experience and when you experience it, it becomes real because you get to feel it in your nervous system. You involve your emotions and, in the process, you get to feel the fullness of a concept turned real and made manifest in reality. You can know yourself to be kind, but until and unless you do something kind, the idea will remain intellectual and weak. Only when you take the idea and act on it will you create the experience. Having the experience of kindness is what you really want.

Experience then is something we create by taking an idea and putting it to use through action. It is when you use your will to take action when you get to "see" the invisible idea take shape in physical form and through physical experience. We all have a deep seeded need to experience that which we know intellectually and that which we crave to experience through our senses and our emotions. From this point of view we are all constantly striving to experience through our physical bodies and our emotions that which we hold as an idea in our intellect and our minds.

The easiest way to turn your ideas into reality is through action. When you use your will you can take any idea and just do it to have the experience of your knowledge. The real purpose of knowledge is action for what good is knowledge when you can't use it? The challenge for most people is that they are held back by their own limiting beliefs and fears. Fears and limiting beliefs are actually imaginary for the belief that taking action might lead to a specific "bad" outcome is what actually prevents you from taking action. It is the fear that doing "this" will mean "that" or will lead to "that" even though it has not occurred yet (and will most probably not).

The reality is that all experience in life happens through contrast. We live in a world that is relative. Everything in life exists in relation to something else and everything in life has it's reciprocal. A wise man once said that someone born blind will never know the meaning of darkness for he's never seen the light. Neale Donald Walsh explains it beautifully in Conversations with God when he said that in the absence of that which is not, that which is, is not. For us to experience anything we must also experience the opposite. Life can never be just a flat and one dimensional experience. It simply does not exist.

The challenge is that most people live in the delusion that their lives are in shatters because there are some things they do not like. In reality they are just experiencing the opposite of what they do want. Hot does not exist without cold. There can be no rainbow without the storm. It is in the contrast that we get to truly live life through the experience of both . When you learn to see life experiences as different states of the same thing you can start to really appreciate all of life and truly have the experience of living life. Appreciating and acknowledging that which is not the way you want, will give you a totally different perspective on everything that you do not like in your life, both past and present. Whether you are feeling lonely, depressed, sad or frustrated you can actually start to appreciate these emotions for it's because of them that you can experience love, vitality, joy and passion.

Regardless of whether you call something good or bad, experience is what will give you fulfilment in life. You have one incredible gift and that is to take your inner desires and experience them. This gift is the gift of action which is your ability to take an impulse of thought and desire and put it to use.

In it's original latin form the word experience actually means to "test" or to "try". When you relinquish your attachment to just experiencing pleasure you will start to see the use and even the meaning of pain for the one creates and defines the other. Experience has no, and needs no attachment to specific outcomes. Although it does not guarantee you a specific outcome, it does guarantee you a rich life that is filled with a multitude of contrasting sensations. Every cell in your body has a "memory" and through experience you get to feel and "record" your intellectual knowledge by engaging all of you. This is the true meaning of "knowing" for it comes with a deep sense of certainty that you feel in your whole body. This is when you "know it in your bones" ?it is a deeper understanding that can never come from intellectual knowledge alone. Your world cannot be grasped by contemplation and knowledge alone, but only through action.

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