Dear parents,
Holy Week is upon us, and we invite you to join us for the Good Friday Service on April 3rd at 7 PM, and the Resurrection Sunday Celebration on April 5 at 11 AM.
Our Easter theme this year is “For His Glory.” The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the single most important event of the Christian faith and the one thing that distinguishes Christianity from all other world religions. We do not follow a dead prophet, but a living Savior who not only gave His perfect life in place of our imperfect lives to pay the just penalty for our sins, but He defeated death and lives in Heaven with His Father and vows to return again soon. It is because of this fact that believers all over the world commit their lives to following Christ, and Christ alone, for He stated Himself that:
“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by me.”
(John 14:6, NIV)
The Apostle Peter’s messages following the resurrection and in establishing the early church were always, “Repent and be baptized.” Peter knew firsthand that when we encounter a Holy God personally through the person of Jesus Christ, we cannot help but respond with a desire to become like Him.
People often ask me, how does one become a Christian? In Acts 2, we see Peter preaching to the crowds in Jerusalem after the resurrection during the Jewish Feast of Pentecost. After he gave his message, Luke records their response: “Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart and said to Peter and to the rest of the apostles, ‘Men and brethren, what shall we do?’” (Acts 2:37) Intelligent people always want to know what the next step is. When a message resonates in our hearts and minds, we want to know how to respond. Luke then writes down Peter’s response:
“Then Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’” (Acts 2:38)
We must first choose to “repent,” which literally means to turn away from something and turn to something new. In other words, we are to turn away from sin and living our lives for ourselves, and turn to God and ask Him to live in and through us. He states that when we make this conscious choice to follow God, His Spirit will live in us. Baptism is simply an outward reflection of what God has already done in our hearts. That is why you will always see in the early church, throughout the book of Acts, people getting baptized as adults through immersion, as they were identifying with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. In one simple act of faith, they were stating to the world, “I no longer identify with this world; I now identify with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.” This is a bold and powerful statement to all who witness a person’s baptism. Jesus said, “If you confess me before men, I will confess you before my Father. But if you deny me before men, I will deny you before my Father.” (Matt. 10:32–33) This act of confession and baptism states to the world that we are His and His alone.
