When we want to meet God, to have Him in our midst, we should try to be as pure as possible. In us, there may be no hatred towards others, but rather the will to show love to as many people as possible.
As God has compassion for us, we should have compassion for others. As a matter of fact, we have the need to get God’s compassion and forgiveness.
The point we must grasp is that all need God to showmercy to them – and we are most unwise to question the morality of God as to where He shows mercy and where He does not! Let us meditate on what he causes to happen
“in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy” (Romans 9:23).
God “has mercy on whomever he wills” (Romans 9:18).
It is not always easy to understand how God works. And sometimes we do get the feeling that He is not showing us mercy at a particular time, or as if He is abandoning us for a while.
Still, we need to be patient and show trust in God. Be that as it may, we must show to others that we have full trust in God and want to share His love with others as He and His son share love with us.
As we embarked on our trek, we met many people with questions.
They dared to join us and joined us on difficult trails.
They braved wildlife, deserts, canyons, waterfalls and wild currents, as well as dangerous swamps.
Darkness could not bother them, for they were sure that a shining star was that light they could follow in the darkness.
After days of difficulties, weeks of questioning, months of questions and answers,
they came so far that they did know where to go and which path to follow further.
They made their choice and no one could change them by it.
They were now sure of That One True God,
Who for them is the Figurehead, The Rock of Trust.
Completing the trek
they now dare to call on the Name of God
in full glory and with a loud voice.
Assured that God knows them by name,
written in indelible ink.
The pilgrimage you have to undertake is a voyage you yourself have to do.
Everyone has their own path that they follow. I know there will be haters along the way, doubters, those who don’t believe in you, and then you will be there and prove them wrong. It is your path and no one else will walk in your place. They can help you find your way if you get lost, they can push you if you stop and say I can’t do it. But it is still on your shoulders to walk and go. Then you reach your destination and look back with relief and say to yourself: I did it.
Perhaps you shall have to go miles before your work shall be done, but by doing it yourself, conquering the many obstacles, you in the end shall feel most satisfaction, having reached your goal
To baptise, water is needed, and not even a little, for true baptism is not by sprinkling with water, but by immersing in the water.
Where that immersion happens does not play a role. Baptism can thus take place in many places and in different forms. If it is warm outside, this can happen in a river or in the sea. If the weather does not allow this, you can use a baptismal basin in a church, but if there is none, you might as well let the baptism take place in a public or private swimming pool.
But one can actually say that baptism can also take place in a bathtub, a barrel, a pond, a well, a swimming pool, a river, a lake or in the sea.
In house churches, baptism usually takes place by immersion in a body of water outside the house church, unless it is done in a bathtub there. There is a lot of preparation among the Christadelphians that will make way before they really start the actual baptism. This is to ensure that the baptismal candidate clearly understands the essences of faith and thinks according to Biblical teaching.
The Christadelphians do not proceed to the baptismal ritual until the newly converted Christian has made a personal confession of his or her faith. In doing so they follow the New Testament example.
In some cultures people are baptised immediately after conversion, in other cultures people prefer that the baptismal candidates undergo a certain preparation. In the latter case, one is sometimes guided by the pursuit of perfection. However, it seems to be a healthy New Testament custom not to pull conversion and baptism far apart.
Paul was baptised three days after his conversion (Acts 9), the Ethiopian eunuch was immediately baptised at his confession of faith (Acts; 8) and the three thousand who converted on the day of Pentecost were apparently all baptised the same day (Acts. 2:41). In the case of Paul, the Ethiopian eunuch and the three thousand in Jerusalem, we must note that they were Jews and thus already had a broad knowledge of God’s commandments and His Will and the Messianic prophecies. Their rapid baptism must be seen in this context.
In our region, we have more to do with non-Jews and people who were not raised according to Jewish teachings. Many lack Scriptural knowledge and several grew up in a faith group where people do not honour the God of Israel, but adhere to the Trinity. Because they are so imbued with traditions that do not follow Biblical teaching, their conversion and demand for baptism also requires more attention.
When we, as catechists, have persons who have limited knowledge of the Way, it has proven useful to teach them thoroughly, so that they choose, with full knowledge of the facts, to be baptised and thus choose to be included in the ecclesia.
For that education, there will be the Bible studies as well as the sermons during the weekly services. But in our current age of electronic reporting, there are the websites of the religious community where various topics can be discussed. The articles posted on the internet can help build faith.
In certain Protestant churches, as with us, it is assumed that one must have acquired sufficient knowledge about God and His People, as well as about Scripture and faith, so that one must be at least in the teenage years to make a choice.
In the previous chapter, we saw that baptising a small child does nothing to help that child develops his or her faith. Even though infant baptism may have an „on joyfully long tradition”, we must realise that certain traditions have rendered the word of God powerless for the sake of their tradition. (Matthew 15:6)
When children grow up, they have many questions about God and commandments. During their search for God and faith, they may want to dedicate themselves to God. To this end, they sometimes make the choice to be baptized in the church community in which they grew up.
When they later get to know another church community and feel better at home there, they often wonder why they should be baptised again. They often forget what was asked of them at their first baptism, or what they had to comply with.
According to some churches, in the baptism of an infant, based on the living faith of the parents, is an advance, as it were, taken on the faith that the child will be handed over from father and mother. It is for this reason that when the Christian faith is completely absent from one of the parents or from both parents, or when the parents do not want to guarantee the development of their child’s faith, the Church, therefore, postpones baptism. If those children come to an age where they can make their own decisions, those churches are open to baptising them.
Reformed churchgoers regularly want to switch to a Baptist community and would like to become a full member there, but they do have difficulty ‘re-baptising’ or ‘overbaptising’. When people enter secondary school, they are even more confronted with all kinds of questions about their attitude to life and faith.
Over the centuries, infant baptism had become by far the most popular, but since the end of the last century there have been more questions about the value of such baptism and whether it would not be better to switch to baptism of faith. Opinions about this baptism of faith also vary widely. It is said that it is not only a personal choice, but that God would have chosen the baptismal candidate himself. The latter may give the baptismal candidate such an intense feeling that years later he or she is convinced that because God has chosen him or her and no new baptism should take place.
I admit that certain young people are truly convinced that they made the right choice in their teenage baptism, and that they did understand everything they were talking about. It may therefore be safe that a baptised person actually believed in a Only God during teenage baptism, but did not think further about whether his or her church community also thought that way about an Only True God. Often their thoughts were so intertwined with the doctrines of the church where they belonged. They therefore did not consider the existence or otherwise of three different entities of their deity that also spoke of « we », so according to them it was also about Christ Jesus.
Adherents of infant baptism see in that act a resemblance to the former circumcision. In the Old Testament, on the eighth day after his birth, each Jewish boy was made a sign of the covenant between God and Israel, in accordance with Gen. 17:10-12 and Lev. 12:3 a circumcision was performed on babies, in which a small circle of flesh is then cut away from the foreskin (the loose sliding covering) of the penis. In many Christian communities, they see baptism as the sign of the new covenant. According to those churches, the promises of the new covenant are greater than those of the old covenant, and that is why they say so
it would be strange to think that the promises in the Old Testament relate to the children, but not those of the New Testament.
While non-Trinitarians view baptism as an active event in which the baptismal candidate indicates that he is entering into a personal relationship with God and that he is becoming a participant in the community of followers of Christ, the followers of infant baptism believe that one is not active in baptism, but passive. According to them, baptism is received and baptism is administered by the church in the name of God. Therefore, Anabaptists see baptism as an act of God in which He gives His promises to the person being baptised.
Of course, God can give his promises to both children and adults, but the institution of baptism is an act that was already performed for Jesus’ public life among adult people, as a sign of their surrender to God. Likewise, Jesus allowed himself to be completely immersed in the Jordan River by John the Baptist, as a sign of surrender to his Heavenly Father.
Among the Christadelphians, the baptismal candidate is also expected to perform a sign of complete surrender to God in the community. The baptismal ritual then becomes a confirmation of that covenant with God, but also of a union of the community of Brothers and sisters in Christ.
We can understand that if someone was baptised in a Pentecostalcommunity and was only asked the following questions
Do you believe in God the Father, our Creator and Saviour?
Will you follow Jesus Christ, His Son, our crucified and resurrected Lord?
Do you entrust yourself to the Holy Spirit, who renews our lives?
Do you desire and promise to serve the Lord faithfully with the church, united around Scripture and Table, in the building of His church and the coming of His Kingdom?
For such baptised people, baptism will really have been a surrender and union with God. Their action is then actually a union with That Only True God who is only one.
But because their baptism was performed in a Trinitarian Church, it may be unclear to others whether they actually surrendered to the True Faith. Especially if they stayed in that community for a long time after that baptism and sang songs with it that glorify Jesus as God.
The teenage years are a period of religious research and development that should not be underestimated. It is an important phase in life: a time of intense emotions and creativity, a phase in which social contacts are very important.
It is also a time of ‘weigh up’ and where the child wants to make a personal choice, free from the will of the parents. This means that in terms of faith, children during adolescence can take a completely different path than their parents.
We are convinced that children of teenage age want to deepen their friendship with Jehovah. To this end, it will certainly happen that they want to make it clear to their heavenly father what they stand with a baptism. We must respect that choice.
However, when transferring to another church community, it also comes down to whether the thoughts of the baptismal ritual correspond with the thoughts of the newly elected church community.
The biggest question is whether, during their teenage baptism, they really went for the God of the Bible, which we as Brothers in Christ want to carry high in our hearts.
It can be difficult if one feels that the baptism that has been entered has not been recognised. But one must rather see that when re-doping, one now also indicates that one wants to go through life as a Brother or Sister in Christ, at the service of Jehovah, the only True God.
To indulge in a re-doping is modest, and it is that humble surrender to God that can be admired. By now switching to an adult baptism, it is made clear that people want to dedicate their lives to God.
The preparation time for that baptism can then be a beautiful time in which they grow spiritually, just as it was for Jesus. (Read Luke 2:52.)
When we go on a trek we open our minds and come to a time when we as pilgrims think about the reasons why we go to the ‘altar of the world’. Our intention is to arrive at the « Holy of the Holy » with this long and sometimes not so easy journey. We would prefer to be as close as possible to God with fellow human beings who enter into the same faith as we do.
At the start of the journey, the trekkers have an intention and want to keep their promise and find more meaning in their lives. The trek one takes is a conscious choice to think intensely about life and where one wants to go. It is a period of reflection to deepen faith, atone for previously committed sins, and reach a point where one can avoid sinning.
There are many reasons to embark on a pilgrimage, and each pilgrim has a different one.
To walk the chosen path is above all a spiritual experience, which requires prior preparation. Sometime before you go on this journey, you should also think about the reasons why you are going on this pilgrimage. You can look at the others who start the journey, but it is important to carefully examine your own motivations.
When taking walks to prepare for your trip, try to think about the reasons why you are heading, about your questions and the answers you are looking for, and about what you plan to achieve by going on this pilgrimage.
During the big trek it will be noticeable how your view of the world can change. You will notice that many people are stuck with certain churches and their traditions, but that they are not really in accordance with Biblical Truth.
If your opinion is that of the majority, it is time to think carefully about whether you are on the right path with that majority. You will also realise that you have also become a victim of that large group of believers who prefer to adhere to the doctrines of that church, instead of feeling free in the world in which Jesus has cut the chains of slavery by rules.
During the journey, there needs to be a lot clearer and you need to realise that there is no point in staying chained to certain churches. Jesus has freed humanity from the human chains and opened the way to the One True God, who is One and not two or three.
With that insight gained, the responsibility also comes to Jesus and his God, to move further in the right direction and to dare to distance himself from the worldly rules of life.
During your pilgrimage, you must realise that not only are you on the road, but others have also entered the quest. You must therefore take them into account and realise that ‘pilgrimage’ is, as it were, also synonymous with ‘sharing’, even if it is an individual experience. Along the way, you will meet other people and you will have the opportunity to address each other and exchange ideas. Exchanging ideas is important to achieve a good learning process. You will also notice that everyone has ended up on the same path through other means as what you are currently on.
Once you meet one and the other, you will be able to see that you are not alone anymore, but that several are looking forward to reaching that same point.
You will begin to notice that there will be one great fixed value in your life, to whom you will eventually become attached. You will begin to notice, if you open yourself to Him, that He will carry you over ditches and valleys over the deep waters.
In « Unavailability », Hartmut Rosa already stated that it is ‘no coincidence that the concept of Democracy braucht Religion, ‘democracy needs religion’, originally originates from a theological context’. According to him, God is fundamentally unavailable, but if certain requirements are met, mutual involvement and accessibility are possible. It is enough to listen to His/Her/The word and get He/She/It available through prayer.
It is on the pilgrimage that the pilgrim wants to open himself to hear the Word of God. It can be reassured that even before the journey, there is not really much room for God in the person. But during the journey, the trekker will learn that it is better to make room in the heart and soul for the Creator of heaven and earth. In fact, « Being God » becomes more important as the journey progresses.
« Whether god exists and the bible is Her/His/The word, Rosa doesn’t care. He is interested in the possibility of resonance, of not being alone in the world. Churches have an arsenal of rites, traditions, gestures, practices and open spaces in which we can allow ourselves to be addressed, to reflect on something. The Bible contains an infinite number of images that evoke resonance. It is one ‘great document of shouting, crying and begging to be heard, to find resonance in the face of a silent starry world.' » Writes Tomas Ronse in his report on Hartmut Rosa in his book « Unavailability » – From-the-heights« .
The trek to be started will be a pilgrimage in which the background figure of the whole event will be discovered. It is one of « seeking » and one of « finding » God and His actual Power. An awareness of the Source of life.
Need for a good plan or guide
To make that trip go well, it is essential to bring a good plan and compass. The very best Plan or Guide available for this purpose consists of about 66 books which are brought together in the Book of books, the Bible. In it many questions will be answered and examples will be given of many men and women who traveled through many countries on their way to that Land of God.
It may be helpful to read those accounts of people who have walked the Way before, or to learn more about the place you will be visiting.
It doesn’t even hurt to bring a pen and paper and write down some things along the way. Consider keeping a journal of your pilgrimage to record the discouragements and joys of the journey.
Paradoxically, the apparent increasing availability of things and people makes our world ‘more unavailable, more unfathomable and more uncertain’. Yet, with so many of us, we want to hold on to it. It seems so unlikely that we would be able to say goodbye to this commercial world. However, going on a journey on this pilgrimage or camino does require that farewell.
For that important journey, it is important that we do not set out alone. We may leave as individuals, but along the way we will meet several people who all have the same dream, to get to where they want to go.
It is during such encounters during the trek that we can be touched by each other. By recognizing that we not only have such questions and that others have similar questions, but also sometimes have answers to what we would like to know. By communicating with each other, we can help each other to come to understand or see things. In this way, a mutual response can take place during the tour. In this way, it can even come to a feeling of being connected. Not appropriating but being moved. By the way, ’emotion’ is derived from emovere: to set in motion. By being open, being accessible, to others, mutual influence can take place and those who meet each other during their pilgrimage can also change with them.
Exposure to change
In this way, everyone’s personality will be exposed to change along the way. There will no longer be a desire for gadgets and knick-knacks, but for what and who that you can never (fully) own.
In our society, far too little attention is paid to the inner self. During a pilgrimage, one is willingly or arbitrarily confronted with the inner self. Each tractor gets to know itself better. As the days go by, the more miles one has travelled, the more the confrontation with one’s self increases. There even comes a time when one can no longer ignore it. One has to confront oneself. Then one may or may not defend oneself, or one may come to the point where one will want to go deeper into oneself and discover that there is a much better self hidden there.
In any case, it is important to think carefully about your pilgrimage before you leave. You can safely consider the how and why.
Hopefully, it has become clear to you that change is needed in your life. Something deep inside you is calling you to take this journey.
What is that urge? What do you desire? Is there something that drives you to undertake this hike? How do you want to change?
Are you willing to change when it counts?
Will you dare to ignore the reactions of those around you and still take your steps?
You may want to choose a special intention for the hike, something or someone you can dedicate your trip to. But eventually you will have to come to realize that the world trip you are about to embark on will not just be a journey to dedicate to others, but that it will initially be about unravelling yourself and fully discovering your own self. But in addition, it will be even more important to discover Who gives your own self a chance to live. The Person behind creation will surely discover you during your trek. You will also notice that that Person will also be able to be your supervisor.
And yet the Christian’s path is not a uniform one, without difficulties. On his way, many obstacles will never cease to oppose his happiness and the ‘encounter with God’ which is ultimately the condition of it.
First, there is sin. Present in each of our lives, it is a total or partial rejection of God, and in this way it binds our freedom and weighs on the progress of the whole Church. This is why, in return, the duty of ‘conversion‘ is imposed on us, that is, the turning of the whole life towards the Lord, leading to a new journey forward.
There is also suffering, which is both a burden and a mystery. Suffering of the body, suffering of the heart, or suffering of the soul, it rises up one day or another before man. Then it may be useless revolt; it can also be the hour of « hope« ; hope, « that flame impossible to extinguish with the breath of death », as Péguy said…
But there is also prayer which, in the very midst of suffering, or in the misery of sin, cries out to God our need, our distress, our poverty, and calls for his help.
No Christian is a solitary Christian. On the contrary, he is in solidarity with all his fellow men and women even in his prayer, for it is with them, in the Church and with Christ, in the Spirit who prays in us, that we can only call God « Our Father » and offer ourselves to him in the rediscovered transparency of our souls at the source of this « Living Water gushing forth eternal life. »
A road on a global scale
This is why the path of Christians is also the path of men, which passes through recommitment to the search for justice and peace. Justice and peace are not personal privileges. There can be no true inner peace without active concern for the peace of nations, nor can there be true love for God or for one’s brothers and sisters without an effective will to justice on all levels: individual, social or international.
The Church leads to the construction of the earthly city all those whom she gathers in search of the future city. It is then that his pilgrimage joins that of all humanity.
Above all, the pilgrim finds himself gathered together with others to listen to the Word of God, and the light of this word provokes in him a new look of faith on his own life, and on the rejection he has made of God on many occasions. He discovers the road ahead. Like David, like the prodigal son, he turns away from his sin and turns to God, who is always ready for forgiveness. He does penance in the full sense of the word: his pilgrim confession is the starting point of an authentic conversion.
In joy, and in an atmosphere of celebration, he partakes of the bread and wine together in memory of the Last Supper of Jesus Christ (the Eucharist). He experiences the unity that exists among all the children of God: there is truly one faith, one Lord, one baptism, one God and Father, but also an unfeigned charity, which carries with it peace and happiness. Finally, he finds himself part of the Church’s mission. At the same time, he feels solidarity with all men in the same struggle for justice and freedom.
God’s Words for the Pilgrimage of life
Life is a pilgrimage
It is in a second phase that pilgrims will discover, in the light of the Word of God, that the unfolding of their life takes on a new meaning in the radiance of the realities lived during a pilgrimage: « Life is the true, the only pilgrimage ».
A Journey to Meet God
Like pilgrimage, human life is a journey to meet God. God has always been looking for man to give himself to him and he offers him an exchange of love, which is realized in Jesus Christ. The sanctuary that the pilgrim frequents is only the image of that « perfect sanctuary » which is the humanity of Christ. God was the first to love us with an extraordinary love through the gift he gave us of his Son, Jesus Christ.
A walk in the Church
Son of God, who came to the earth of men, ‘the Word of the Father which he reveals, ‘a servant who accepts suffering’, he continues his mission in the Church.
Through Baptism, he united us to the mystery of his death and resurrection. Now, when we gather in the ecclesia, we feel connected as brothers and sisters in Christ, but even more so with our DivineFather, the One True God. This connection with God or God’s covenant with His people, and us, gives us the strength to go on in life.
And his Spirit is beginning to realize in the community of believers the unity towards which the whole of humanity is on the move.
An Upward Walk to Holiness
It is also in the Church that the Christian receives the eternal Word of God. He receives it in faith, and in its light he perceives the vocation to holiness which is his and which he must realize throughout his life and through the most diverse forms of his activity. He will do so, not on the cheap, nor even passively, but with a fully lucid commitment, the true dimension of which he sometimes needs to rediscover. Through his work, in his daily life, the effort made will not only be a legitimate search for the happiness for which he is made, but also a contribution to the building of a new world.
In certain 
The teenage years are a period of religious research and development that should not be underestimated. It is an important phase in life: a time of intense emotions and creativity, a phase in which social contacts are very important.
Kanisa la Christadelphian huko Anderlecht 