My family and the Church around me taught me about God, Jesus, and the Gospel message when I was young, and I’ve believed it to be true for almost as long. It was my own life and God’s work in and around it that taught me how much I need Him and the Gospel, how powerful and awesome they are, and the depth and richness of them.
Growing up in the Church was a true blessing, but it had its brokenness as life does. Friends that treated me one way at church and in youth group treated me in completely different ways elsewhere, and I quickly became insecure about my worth and identity. I felt like there might be something wrong or undesirable about me, something misplaced or misshapen. I felt alone and isolated, and wanted to prove that I was valuable and desirable through the accomplishments I achieved and the groups I was a part of. My identity was solely derived from what others thought of me, or what I thought they thought of me. This caused only more feelings of inadequacy and unwantedness, and also fueled the actually broken parts of me – my fragile pride told me to assert myself above others, even if that knocked them down. I was jealous and possessive of friendship, and most of all I was not listening to God’s reminders that I was His son, that my identity was in Him and Him alone, and that I was broken only due to my own sin and not in how He created me to be, and that Jesus died for that brokenness even so. It took many years for these truths to start actually sinking in, but they did due in large part to faithful mentors and healthy friendships that God blessed me with in high school and college. The more I understand what is really broken about me, and how deeply broken it is, the more I understand Christ and how truly divine His love and grace for me are.
The things I have struggled with have not disappeared entirely, but Jesus’s death and resurrection for my sins frees me from being chained to them. Instead, through the power of His Spirit, I am made alive and free to pursue Him, knowing that though I am broken, He makes me whole. 2 Peter 1:3-4 have been affirming of this for me: “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”
I was baptized as a child, and while I still don’t know exactly where I personally stand theologically on the issue I have believed that my eternal future is secure in Jesus regardless. However, I also respect Hope Community Church’s theology and commitment to baptism by immersion for its members. This has brought me to my decision to get baptized as an adult – not because I have experienced some recent revelation in my faith or because I thought my salvation was in question. I want to be baptized as an adult because I want every day of my life to confess my faith in God and my salvation through Jesus as much and as clearly as baptism does, and this gives me another opportunity to do just that.
