Lately, I have discovered how important it is to step back and think anew about the miracle that has happened in each of us as believers in Jesus.
Do you still remember that first day of your “new life”, when you were truly converted for the first time? Where were you and how did it happen?
How well I remember it! That Friday, the 10th of October 1969, when Willem Brits, my CSV circle leader, asked us in his CSV circle: Are you sure that if you were to die today, you would be allowed into heaven, and why?
What would you answer if you were asked there: Why should God allow you into heaven?
And then he explained the Gospel message to us about why God the Son, as Jesus of Nazareth, became an ordinary man and came to die on a cross.
I went home and thought about this. There, in a quiet place – which was very rare in a house with 5 boys – I realized that even though I had grown up in a good Afrikaans-speaking Christian home, where we went to church very regularly, in light of what God says in His Word, I was totally lost and on the way to hell!
I also experienced how Jesus himself stood there in front of me and held out to me the gift of grace that He had also worked out for me through His suffering and death. I still hear Him say today: I loved you so much that I did this for you too. So, take it with empty hands of faith for you too!
There I took it, and based on His Word and His promises to me, from that moment on I knew for sure that I was a child of God!
Or like Gal. 2:16 says: “We also have come to faith in Christ Jesus, and this is how we have been justified: by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, for by observing the law no one will be justified.”
That is why I am still sure of this today. Not because I try to live a good life, or go to church regularly, or try to keep God’s laws every day. No, I am sure of my childhood and that I have also received the “new life.”
Over time, I also discovered that God himself lives in me through the Holy Spirit. Yes, that I will never be alone. God himself, Jesus himself, lives in me through God the Spirit.
Or, as it continues in Gal. 2: “… and now it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God, who demonstrated his love for me by laying down his life for me.”
Today I do wish that things had happened differently and more biblically that day of my conversion!
Yes, that I had already then discovered and realized the true place of baptism in water! So that the day I was converted, I could have been taken to the water, as according to Scripture, to be baptised in water then and there. And hear from the believers there what was written in Galatians::
"Yes, for years you were dead because of your sin. But now, because you chose to believe the message of the Gospel about what Jesus also came to do for you on the cross and through His death, God's Spirit has ministered new life to you and regenerated you to be a new person with God's life in you, from now on.
Yes, Jesus Himself lives in you through His Spirit."
Yes, and to then experience how God's people lay their hands on you and pray for you there: Lord Jesus, thank You that You are not only our Savior and Lord! You are also the Baptiser with the Spirit! Come now and baptize this newborn child of Yours with the Spirit! Thank you that Your Spirit already lives in him. Come and equip him now with the gifts of the Spirit through which You also want to work through him in his life going forward. Then use him as You will so that Your Name can be glorified, Your Kingdom can come, and Your will can also be done in and through his life! Thank you, Lord Jesus, that You have also done this in him, as You promised there in Luke 11:13.”
Thank God that I and the rest of my believing family, on that Saturday morning of October 9, 1993, could also be baptized as believers Biblically! Praise His Name for His grace!