Monday, January 9, 2006

Abigail Baptized

Abigail, our oldest child, was baptized this past Sunday. We rejoice in her desire to follow Jesus and make her profession of faith public. It is always difficult to ascertain whether children are truly born again or simply believing the facts and worldview that they have always had. In Abigail's case, she had several spiritual breakthroughs from the ages of five to seven in which the Lord seemed to be at work in her heart making her more and more sensitive to sin and tender towards Him. She understands the gospel, shows evidence of God's grace in her life, and desires to be baptized, so along with Jesus I say "Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." (Matthew 19:14) At our church we don't simply accept the judgment of the parents (even though I am an elder) since they are often so eager to see their children converted and baptized they have a natural bias. We have the child speak with another elder (pastor) for a while about the gospel and about their profession of faith.

Here is Abigail's testimony in her own words (with a little help from Daddy):
Before I was saved I did things like talking back to mommy a lot when I would say "one minute." I felt like I didn't really believe in Jesus because I was so sinful and when I got disciplined sometimes I didn't really mean it; I just prayed because I had to. I learned about the gospel from the Bible. I read the story that Jesus died on the cross and I was really sad for Him. He had to die on the cross because He took the punishment for us. One night when mommy said to pray in my bed I said "Lord, please forgive me of all my sins, please save me." Now I feel happy that I'm forgiven. I've been more obedient to mommy and have not been so bossy toward Emma and Catie. My favorite verse is Psalm 150:3 "Praise Him by blowing trumpets. Praise Him with harps and lyres." I love Jesus.



We were able to snap a couple of pictures of pastor Bob Glenn baptizing her: