Sounds good! I appreciate that too. The only thing is how does one have assurance that they actually have the belief that Jesus is speaking about. Thanks again!!
Hi mickey,
Well, that is something that only the person themselves can answer. Obviously, this person, in now beginning to read the Scriptures is finding that she may not have had it at the age of 10. As I say, why would anyone discourage re-baptism? Is there something I'm missing in the Scriptures that would bring condemnation from God for such a practice?
However, to give some answer to your question, I'll share my own experience. I was baptized as a young child. My grandfather was a pastor all of his life and yes, I stood before a congregation and said that I was trusting in Jesus and then down under I went. Then I went out and lived my life like hell's demons. Sure, I continued to go to worship services and I went to summer youth camp, etc. etc. But, I absolutely did not have any thoughts or love for God or His Son or His Spirit or His word in my life. I had just been baptized and when I was filling out a questionnaire of some kind I always checked off 'christian' and if anyone asked my, yea, I was a Christian but I based that on the very fact that I had made that proclamation and been baptized. So, I'm a Christian, right?
Well, when I was about 40 my Father put a serious whoppin' on my heart and I realized that I'd been living a lie for the last 30 years. I didn't love Jesus. I wasn't really trusting him. I was just a man who was a Christian because I'd once given testimony to that fact and been baptized.
I got down on my knees and I asked God to forgive me for my sin and to give me an unquenchable thirst to know Him because I now believed that the testimony, all of it, that He had caused men to write for me, was the truth. Since that time I also dealt with a regular and severe gnawing in my spirit that I needed to be baptized. It gnawed and gnawed on me for several years before I finally gave in. The issue has never come up again in my spirit.
As I said before, only the person themselves knows in their heart what they believe about God, but I'm pretty confident that most of those standing before Jesus on the day of God's judgment begging him to remember them, will be people who, one day in their life, stood and said that they trusted in him and were then baptized. This is why Jesus says that the baptism must be coupled with belief and even goes further in saying that if they don't have belief then their baptism is worthless.
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
So yes, I believe that there are false baptisms. The OP seems to be experiencing a gnawing in her heart that hers may have not been the kind of baptism that Jesus describes. A baptism coupled with belief. So, let's look at the possibilities. She was baptized but didn't truly believe. Jesus says there is condemnation in that. She was baptized but didn't truly believe and now truly believes and is baptized. Is there condemnation for that?
God bless you.
In Christ, Ted