Baptism

This is a paper I wrote for Bible class. It's vaguely about baptism.

When I think back as far as I can, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love Jesus. From infancy I was introduced to Him through pictures, songs, and stories. If my friends didn’t know Him, I would try to tell them about Him, and I loved to sing His praises, but I was still a human little girl.

One experience that really stands out in my childhood happened when I was just four years old. At the time, I was attending a private preschool and like most preschools, we had nap time. Every day, when the teacher would tell us to go get our mats and take a nap, I would place my mat next to my favorite shelf which held several boxes of sparkly things, pieces of ribbon, little figurines, and my very favorite: strings of plastic pearls.

Of course, I didn’t get much napping done when my mat was next to this shelf. Whenever my teacher would look away I would quietly slip my hand into the box of pearls and steal a small strand. Then I would lie still for the rest of nap time, slowly and carefully twisting the strand of pearls in my fingers until each pearl had been separated and the individual pearls could be slipped into pockets, seams, and socks.

My teacher never caught me. It wasn’t until my mom found my stash of pearls at home that my project was discovered. Then everything changed. When my mom explained to me the evils of stealing and how sad it made Jesus to see me taking things from my teacher, my little heart was broken. I loved Jesus so much and I couldn’t bear hurting Him. For several weeks I would pray and cry, begging Jesus to forgive me. I apologized to my teacher multiple times, but I couldn’t seem to rid myself of my burden of guilt.

Not long after this, when I was five, my family started attending an evangelistic series. I listen to every meeting, and I learned a lot. One night the pastor talked about baptism. He spoke about how we were to follow the example Christ set at the Jordan River, he spoke about our death to sinfulness and our new life of righteousness in Christ, and he spoke of the cleansing of sin. This was what I needed; I wanted to be baptized. When there was a call for baptism, I went forward, and a few weeks later, I was baptized. In baptism I found freedom from a life of sin and a deeper relationship with Christ. Not only was I cleansed of my guilt and sin, but I was covered in Christ’s righteousness. Just as it says in Galatians 3:27: “For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”

I wasn’t a perfect girl before baptism, and I’m not a perfect girl now. In being baptized, however, I have shown that I have chosen to put on Christ’s righteousness like a garment (Is. 61:10), and now, through Him, I have the power to be perfect, just as my Father in heaven is perfect (Matt. 5:48).