Doesn’t my water baptism as a child make me a member of God’s family?

   A tradition started by man does not save you or assure your salvation. Only God’s word can lead you. Baby baptism is not a part of the salvation process.   Unfortunately many times man has made a ritual out of a very crucial teaching in God's Word.  A baby has no capacity to repent and believe as God had commanded (Acts 17:30, Mark 1:14-15).  We can only please God by our faith and diligently seeking Him (Hebrews 11:6).  "So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Romans 10:17). Can any baby make a profession of Christ as Lord and Savior?  No!  Common sense tells you that babies need to learn what is right and wrong.  This bears witness with the inner revelation that God has given each man (Romans 2:14-15).  Didn’t Jesus have to learn? "Butter and honey shall He eat, that He may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good” (Isaiah 7:15-16).  Water baptism is necessary after repentance (Acts 2:38) and a profession of faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

   Each person must reach the age of accountability (knowing the difference between right and wrong) and choose to turn from sin, have faith, and lead a new life in Christ.  We must follow God’s word and not man’s tradition. "Full well, you reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition” (Mark 7:9).  We are never to supplant the truth behind water baptism.  What is that truth?  It is a statement to the world and a commitment to live a crucified life in Christ in order that we may be resurrected with Him.  Water Baptism represents the crucified life (Romans 6:4-5).  Death is the path to life!

Dying to Self is Life! 

*When you’re forgotten, or neglected, or purposely set aside, and you don’t sting and hurt with the insult or the oversight, but your heart is happy, being counted worthy to suffer for Christ, that’s dying to self.

*When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your advice disregarded, your opinions ridiculed, and you refuse to let anger rise in your heart, or even defend yourself, but you take it all in patient, loving silence, that’s dying to self.

*When you lovingly and patiently bear any disorder, any irregularity, and any annoyance; when you stand face to face with waste, folly, extravagance, spiritual insensibility, and endure as Jesus endured, that’s dying to self.

*When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation, or to record your own good words, or itch after commendations, when you truly love to be unknown, that’s dying to self.

*When you can see your brother prosper and have his needs met and you can honestly rejoice with him and feel no envy, or question God, while your own needs are far greater and in desperate circumstances, that’s dying to self.

*When you can receive correction and reproof from one of less stature than yourself and can humbly submit inwardly, as well as outwardly, finding no rebellion or resentment rising up within your heart, that’s dying to self.

   Are you dead yet?  In these last day’s, may the Spirit bring us to the cross, “That I [we] may know Him .  .  .  being made conformable unto His death (Philippians 3:10).” – Author unknown