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Jesus promises to give the
water of eternal life to anyone who truly thirsts
for it. In the fifth jewel, The Invitation,
we learned that this water of life was really God's
own Spirit who comes to wash and indwell all those
who come to Him (Titus 3:5).
Faith
& Repentance
And how do people come to
Him? First, they must have FAITH. They must
believe the good news about Christ—who He is,
what He has done for them, and that He is ready
to save them from sin.
Next, they must REPENT.
They must sincerely turn away from their sinful
life (Luke 24:47; Acts 2:38), giving themselves
up to God completely (Romans 6:6), calling upon
Him to save them (Romans 10:13, Acts 22:16).
In the early church, this
faith and repentance was expressed by people in
the waters of baptism (Acts 8:35-38). As they went
beneath those waters, they yielded their entire
selves to God, entering spiritually into Christ’s
death for them, and were washed of their sins, not
by the water, of course, but by God Himself in response
to their sincere consciences (1 Peter 3:21). Then
God’s Holy Spirit would come to live within
them, giving them His eternal life. These new "babes
in Christ" could then truly call God their
"Father" (Gal 4:6)!
Consecrational
Prayer
Since the 1800s this act of
faith and repentance began to be less demonstrated
through baptism, especially in cases where those
converting were already baptized as infants. While
baptism is the true Biblical pattern of conversion
which Jesus gave us, unfortunately it became so
ritualized over the centuries that its original
purpose was virtually lost. Indeed, it was believed
by many in the church that the rite of baptism itself
evoked God’s saving power, rather than the
faith and repentance of the one being baptized.
In hopes of correcting this,
many of today’s churches have replaced this
main function of baptism with a prayer of consecration
called the Sinner’s Prayer. This
prayer is now commonly used to bring people to the
active surrender of their lives to Christ, while
the rite of baptism is relegated to more of a symbol
of salvation rather than the vehicle
of it.
Miracle
in the Soul
In either case, the need for
faith and repentance remains the same. The most
important thing is that a person comes to God in
both sincerity of faith, believing the Good News
of Jesus, and in heartfelt repentance, turning to
God with all his heart and away from his life of
sin. Whether through baptism or through consecrational
prayer, the miracle must still happen in the soul:
God's Spirit washing
from sin and recreating a new life!
For those who wish to be baptized,
you do not need to find an ordained minister for
this. Any true Christian can baptize you into the
faith! And for those who prefer to use a consecrational
prayer, we have provided the prayer listed below.
If you'd like to hear a recording of this prayer
which you can easily pray along with just click
the Audio Prayer button below.
Click
here to listen to Consecration Prayer audio
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