Trailblazin Ministries Blog

Faith

Salvation and Baptism

Written by LaRosa Johnson
Saturday, 26 January 2008
Filed under: Faith, LaRosa

Lately I've been thinking about salvation and baptism. More specifically, I've been thinking about my salvation and baptism. I've been thinking about it to the point where I question the date of my salvation, considering it to be much closer to the present than when my certificate says that it happened. Let me explain.

I grew up in church. My parents were raised in the church and my brother and I were in church from childhood. And with that came a very natural love for the things of God, loving to go to church, and having a very good understanding of the Scriptures at a young age (at least I thought so). Because I grew up in the church and knew the Christian-ese, so to speak, most people throughout my life figured that I was saved and never really approached me with the gospel. I really didn't know any better, so I kind of just assumed that I was a Christian and was saved (having never been presented the gospel myself, even though I knew the "Romans Road" and all of that kind of stuff).

Fast forward to 1994 around October and I'm sitting in Bible study one night and the teacher (an elder) asks the kids to raise their hand if they were saved. Consciously, I did not raise my hand, and he took note of that. After the class was dismissed to go back and sit with the adults, he took me aside and asked if I wanted to become a Christian that night. Of course I said yes, and he gave me his gospel spill and had me pray a prayer with him. A couple months later I was baptized during a service at another church (we didn't have our own building at the time, and joined with another church during their baptismal service). So, that was my salvation story, but nothing in my life really changed. I never really was repentant of any sins and still figured that I was a good person and on my way to heaven. I even started my own little ministry online (Jesus4Life), which has since evolved into Trailblazin Ministries, thinking that I could teach the Word of God to an online audience.

By most people's standards I was living a pretty decent and moral life, even during my college years where I slipped up pretty bad according to my own standards. I didn't attend church nearly as often as I should have (not that the churches I was attending were teaching sound doctrine anyway, in hindsight of course), and I was doing things with my girlfriend at the time that a supposed man of God shouldn't be doing. All that aside, and even working in campus ministry, I still don't ever think that the gospel really clicked with me. I knew that everyone else was a sinner, and even recognized that I messed up from time to time, but still thought that I was a good person and on my way to heaven. Even after leaving college and coming back home, I still was living a sexually immoral life with my girlfriend & fiancée (now wife), not bearing any of the fruit that is found in a true believer. Even still, I was playing the "game" and nobody knew any better.

It wasn't until I started listening to Way of the Master Radio (circa mid to late 2006) that I really heard the gospel preached and it was in a way that no one had ever preached it before, at least not that I had heard. I was shown that I was a sinner when confronted with God's Law (the Ten Commandments) and I had a truly repentant heart and seriously wanted to put my trust in the Savior to save me from my sins. It wasn't so that He could make my life better or any of that, but so that I could be saved from my sins, and anything else on top of that is just icing on the cake. That was the first time that the gospel clicked and made sense to me. It was also around this same time that I was being challenged hard by my brothers Kerry and Michael to dig into the Word as they challenged all of the doctrine that was being taught at my church and that I was touting as my own. That's when I started listening to Piper, MacArthur, Begg, and Sproul and heard the Word of God preached in a manner that I had never witnessed before, and I felt that this was the way it should be done and that it was the Word of God being handled accurately.

It's funny because I began to listen to some of my Christian rap again (i.e. Cross Movement) and they had been teaching this stuff in their music all along, but I had been blind to it. It was seriously as if the scales had been lifted off my eyes and the plugs removed from my ears. I was experiencing the Word of God in a whole new light and it was completely invigorating for me. I now truly felt that I was saved. I had an overwhelming desire to please God that I didn't have before, and my life and ministry was now all about glorifying God, and no longer about what God could do for us in a materialistic manner.

And that's what has led me to the point I'm at now. A few months ago my church had a baptism service, but I was still sorting through all of these thoughts and figured that my first baptism was good enough. Now, I realize that my first baptism meant absolutely nothing because I was not a believer when I got baptized. I may have thought that I was, but I wasn't, not in the least bit. Now that I know that I'm saved, I must be obedient to the Scriptures and be baptized as a believer in Christ Jesus, since I am able to do so. It took some wrestling to get to that point, but I feel it is the right decision. I will be letting my pastor know this as soon as I can so that we can make arrangements for this to take place, whenever it might happen (of course when it's warmer, since we do it out in public for all to see).

That's what I've been thinking about in regard to this topic. As much as I can, I want to remain true to the Scriptures, and this is one of the ways in which I can do that. The question that I have now is a date for my salvation. Last time it was supposedly October 1994, but I wouldn't dare count that anymore. I do feel that it is necessary to have a point of reference for when my spirit was born again. So, to begin to narrow it down, I would have to say that it was sometime in the second half of 2006. I know it had to be before I made a decision to leave my old church, which was toward the end of October and into November. So I would have to say that it was sometime between August and early October. If I had to pick a date though, I would probably say October 2006, only for the simple fact of that's when I really started to make significant changes in my life and knew for a fact that I was a true and repentant believer in Jesus Christ.

It's amazing how far along I've come in such a short amount of time. Next, I'll talk about how I feel like I'm having to relearn everything I've ever known about Christianity from my childhood. God bless, grace and peace!