surrender to God – Kanisa la Christadelphian huko Anderlecht

Baptised believers left in the world to use

Mai 17, 2024Mai 16, 2024 par Marcus Ampe, publié dans Behaviour or attitude towards others, Christadelphian, Faith, Jesus Christ - son of God, Words of encouragement

In the previous chapter we have seen how Jesus prayed for unity among his followers whom he saw as people entrusted to him.

Jesus said in his prayer to God that his disciples, belong to his Heavenly Father and will be reflected in him.

« All mine is yours, and yours is mine; I am glorified in them. »(John 17: 10 Book)

« All That Is Mine Is Yours, and All That Is Yours Is Mine. They reflect who I am. »(John 17: 10 Book)

Jesus also asks that the disciples be one, just as the father and he Are One, and Jesus is one with his followers.

« I leave the world and come to you, but they still remain in the world. Holy Father, protect In Your Name those whom you have given me, so that they may be one like us. »(John 17: 11 Book)

Being « left behind » in this world, we need that protection from God. In our community, we need to stand up for each other. Together we must form one strong community that provides shelter for those who have not yet been baptised. We must show them that we are best formed by the word of God. By believing in that word we can gain knowledge and be purified.

« Make them pure and holy by teaching them in your word of truth. »(John 17: 17 Book)

For this, we have the master teacher in whom we have all confidence and recognize as our high priest.

26 therefore he is exactly the High Priest we need: he is holy, blameless, and undefiled; he has been set apart from sinners and has been given the highest place in the heavens. 27 ordinary high priests need the blood of sacrificial animals every day to cover their own sins and those of the people. But Jesus Christ once and for all erased all sins when he sacrificed himself on the cross. »(Hebrews 7:26-27 Book)

Through Christ’s act of sacrifice, everyone has been given the opportunity to be delivered from The Curse of death. Jesus did not ask God to take away the believers from the world, but rather to use them in the world. As Jesus was sent into the world, now the believers who have surrendered to Christ Jesus have also received the same commission as Jesus had. Jesus has given us the same task, namely to go out into the world.

« I am sending them into the world, just as you sent me into the world. »(John 17:18 Book)

« »Peace! »said Jesus. « As the father sent me, so I send you. » »(John 20:21 Book)

« Therefore, go forth to make all nations My disciples. Baptize them in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to always do what I have told you. » (Matthew 28:19 Book)

« For you must teach others what I have taught you and many others. Teach these great truths to reliable men, who, in turn, can pass them on to others. » (2 Timothy 2:2 Book)

We can now open our community to all who want to come to us or are curious about our teachings. By being open, we can give all our visitors the opportunity to see that we are committed to following the Bible. Then they can be convinced that this collection is our guide and that we are a community that does not adhere to church dogmas but only to the provisions and doctrinal rules specified in the Bible.

Even though we have not seen the signs of Jesus ‘ execution and have not experienced His resurrection and ascension, we are convinced that these miracles have taken place. The record in the Book of books is enough for us to believe and spread the good news.

30 many of the miracles Jesus performed before his disciples are not recorded in this book. 31 I have written some of these so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God. If you believe in him, you live in his name. »(John 20: 30-31 Book)

It was Jesus ‘ great desire that his disciples should become one. He wanted them to be united as a powerful testimony to the reality of God’s love.

Forming a community together, we must now be ready to bring others to God. As brothers and sisters of each other and of Christ, we must share together the love of Christ. To family and friends, wherever we go, we must proclaim what Jesus and his God have done.

« Go to your family, « he said, » and tell them what God has done for you. »The man went everywhere in the city to tell what Jesus had done for him. »(Luke 8:39 Book)

19 » go home, « he said, » to your family and friends and tell them what God has done for you, how good he has been for you. 20 the man went out and told all over the Decapolis region what Jesus had done for him. Everyone listened to him in amazement. »(Mark 5:19-20 Book)

Only baptised persons may sit at the Lord’s table. But those who are allowed to sit can help others to see that they too will be allowed to partake of the bread and wine, if they want to surrender to God and confirm this for the community with their baptism. In this way, the community must grow into a place where many will be able to be partakers, and thereby confirm their faith that Jesus has surrendered for them.

In unity we will be able to meet so regularly, to encourage each other and together to remember Jesus dead.

« We should not stay away from our meetings. Some make a habit of that, but that’s not good. We must encourage and warn one another, especially now that we see that it will not be long before the Lord Jesus returns. »(Hebrews 10: 25 Book)

« For every time you eat of this bread and drink from the cup, you confirm that the Lord has died. Do this until he comes back. »(1 Corinthians 11:26 Book)

Preceding

Additional reading

Congratulations for baptism

Mai 7, 2024Mai 8, 2024 par Marcus Ampe, publié dans Announcement, Christadelphian, Faith, News

Dear Pascal, Donatien and Méthode,

Today you have made an important act for God, Jesus and his community.

We are very happy that you have taken this step of surrender and that we can include you here in our Community of Brothers in Christ, or Christadelphians.

Hopefully, may your act of surrender to God in the faith of the Messiah, be further deepened, and grow into an edifying faith in the Kingdom of God.

May God bless you and may we continue to explore together on the Path of Peace for many years to come.

Infant baptism versus baptism as an adult #3 Adult baptism

mars 4, 2024février 29, 2024 par Marcus Ampe, publié dans Behaviour or attitude towards others, Christadelphian, Faith, Questions & Answers

Photo by Andres Pu00e9rez Manjarres on Pexels.com

At the time of Jesus, adults were immersed as a sign of surrender to the Only True God, the Sovereign Lord Jehovah. For the Hebrews, baptism was also a reminder of the People of Israel, who had to pass through the water after slavery to experience real freedom. They had always lived as slaves and did not know any better, but because of the split sea they walked towards their liberation. The descendants also wanted to remember this liberation. The point is not to be a slave to the world anymore, but to be freed by the Grace of God.

Jesus was also baptised in adulthood before he began his preaching tours. It could be said that there was no reason at all that Jesus should be baptised. He was a very pious Jew who had committed no sins at all and had completely surrendered to his Father. Yet he thought it was passable to be baptised.
He himself also instructed his disciples to preach and baptise people in the Name of the Father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that Jesus had commanded them. (Matthew 28:19-20; Mark 16:15) Those baptisms were there for the forgiveness of sins and to receive the free gift of the Spirit (Acts 2:38) and were also a sign to others that they wanted to give up as a believer (Acts 8:12-13)

Today, for us, baptism is also a confession for the entire community that one surrenders to God and wants to come under Christ, and that one now wants to go through life as a brother or sister in Christ.

It is so easy for young people to take something very enthusiastically and then, with equal fire, tackle something else again. We also notice that in certain Trinitarian churches several young people are baptised, but after a few years, they have completely lost the way of God. Others show that they had not understood the person of God properly and had or had not submitted to a Trinity unless, however, very few were convinced that they had dedicated themselves to a simple God. The latter category is special and commendable. But they will ultimately have to admit that their baptism happened for members of a Trinitarian church and thus cannot be seen as a surrender to a community of true worshippers of the One True God.

It may be safe that in his teenage years, the adolescent was convinced with the knowledge already acquired that they had it right. They could even say « Yes » to questions asked at the time.
Could those teenagers at that stage really realise what baptism really means and what it means to take the step of the assignment as a perpetual ’vow to God’ to always do His will, involving their entire lives?

I believe that when one has passed 12 years, one can indeed make a serious choice for God. Teenage baptism is therefore a valid union between the baptismal candidate and God. Suppose that baptism happened in a non-Trinitarian church, as in the Church of God, the Abrahamic Church of God, Church of the Blessed Hope or « CGAF » (associated with Christadelphians), the Non-Trinitarian Baptists or the Witnesses of Jehovah. In that case, it is an acceptable baptism for us.

However, if it was a baptismal matter in a Trinitarian church, such as the Pentecostal church, we must insist that people re-baptise better and give a sign of humility towards the religious community by being completely immersed in the presence of non-Trinitarian brothers and sisters.

Additional reading

Infant baptism versus baptism as an adult #2 The Teenage Baptism

mars 3, 2024février 28, 2024 par Marcus Ampe, publié dans Christadelphian, Faith, Questions & Answers, Reflection - Meditation

communion - baptism renewal — Photo by Wilson Pinto on Pexels.com

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.

Mennonites or Baptists, such as the Brethren and Brothers in Christ of Brethren in Christ (or Christadelphians) like to talk about baptism as a testimony of personal faith, and point out to child baptisms that the Bible never cites the idea of baptising newborns.

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 Pentecostal community 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?

that one could safely answer « Yes » if one really believed in the Only True God, the Heavenly Father of Jesus Christ. In this way, that baptismal ritual could be a real surrender to God.

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.

In several Pentecostal churches, after baptism, people sing a song in which they say they kneel before Jesus, whom they see as their Lord (God). Such a worship of Jesus is not possible at all and if an earlier member of a Trinitarian church wants to become a member of our Christadelphian movement, that person will have to conclude that old life and enter the new life through complete immersion in the water and confession of keeping only one True God, the God of Abraham, God of Isaac and Jacob, who is also the God of Jesus Christ.

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.)