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A Testimony :

In 2016 I was baptized, a thing I had no intention of doing for a very long time. It was after studying the book of Ephesians and recognizing the fullness of God’s working in us that I agreed I should be baptized. I had written this at that time and just came across it. I suppose I’d given up on Arminianism shortly before. Wanted to share it with my readers

“I think that it would be wrong to say that it was my decision to accept that I should be baptized. It was, I believe, no more in my power than accepting Christ in the first place. I have been assured of my salvation, for I know that though I fail him continually, God is ever faithful. Still, my convictions to do good work are borne out of faith given by God. A short time before this moment, if a man had told me that he had exercised his free will in accepting Christ, I would have agreed with him. But, now I see the foolishness of that view. What free will hath a man? Is he not dead? Does he not walk daily in a prison, awaiting impatiently his sentence? No, we have no freedom, but are slaves to this life, to this world and the will of Satan who drives it against the will of God.

And so, Christ made me alive, though not for the purpose of exercising my will, but to be again a slave, now unto the greater will of God. But this slavery I endure happily in the peaceful knowledge and hope of his greater promise to me. Certainly on the day of judgement, he shall call me righteous, and shall not see my sins. But, he shall call me his son, fellow-heir to his kingdom with Christ. What greater hope can a man have than this? That being dead and destined to destruction, God did call me unto undeserved salvation. What do I owe God for this tremendous mercy? Shall I not give all to him? Is he not worthy of much more than I can give? If I should gain the whole world, it would amount to nothing in the face of the insurmountable debt of gratitude I owe my master. For I was a man without hope, dead in my sins and trespasses, but God was exceedingly merciful. Were I to taste eternal death, it would have been just, certainly I am deserving of hell, and the grace of God weighs heavy on my soul. Do I not owe my king allegiance? And so I am called to obey him in all things.

And I come again to the matter of baptism. What power hath water to save, or wash clean the sins of man? None. There is no more power in water than in bread or wine, or even the dust of flesh from which I was borne out. Then what does it profit me to be baptized in it. Certainly I have undergone another baptism, a submersion in Christ, being pulled into him, such that my spirit rests now in him, at the right hand of the Father in heaven. But this life was given to me in the spirit, by God’s own design and effort. But where is my identification? Do I not sojourn this world in corruptible flesh? Can water perfect it? Certainly it cannot. But by my burial in the water of baptism, I may identify with the death of my Lord outwardly, and I may call my flesh into obedience, consecrating it unto the Lord. And in rising up out of it, I call to remembrance my unity with Christ through resurrection. For I died in Christ, and I rose up again in him.

Was Christ not obedient, even unto death? So was I called to die. But he was resurrected into a greater life, of which I now partake. I am called now to do this good work. Certainly God has placed this conviction in my heart. If I were to die without the washing of water, it would cost me naught in the matter of salvation, for such has already been given in Christ by the power of his love to me. But it is right to be subjected to the will of my Master. For ever do we seek his glory, honor, unto immortality. Amen.”