Thursday, September 10, 2009

Basically Simple

Why does Mankind make religion so difficult. God doesn't.
Matthew 28:18-20 And Jesus came up and spoke to them saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
That is a very easy passage to understand. God the Father has given His Son Jesus all authority in heaven and earth. We are to follow the commandments of Jesus and His apostles.
Who should be baptized? Infants? Hardly when you consider that the apostles were told to teach, make disciples, and baptize. It is obvious that the candidates for baptism had to be old enough to be taught.
What type of baptism is acceptable? Sprinkling? Pouring? Romans 6:3-5 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.
How hard is that? I've yet to see a burial take place with a few sprinkles of dirt or even a couple of pitchers of dirt. Baptism is a burial. We do not come in contact with the blood of Christ Jesus until we are buried with Him. We are dead to our sins, buried in baptism and arise to walk in newness of life.
Don't fall for the comforting doctrine of belief only - James 2:19 Demons believe, too. Jesus said, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven." Matthew 7:21. There are going to be many religious people on judgement day who are going to be cast out because they preferred to follow mans ways and mans religions and not God's. People are all up in arms about what is going on in the government and they are crying, 'study the constitution'. There is nothing wrong with that if we have our priorities in place. God should come first. We need to diligently study the Bible.

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