Previous posts summarised
This blog is about living forever and before I continue I will recap what the previous posts were all about.
It is with Adam and Eve that the concept of living forever was explained to humanity. Adam and Eve taught us that disobedience to our maker gets us in big trouble, so much so that they were both thrown out of the garden of Eden as a result of their disobedience.
God gave Sarah and Abraham a son in their old age and this made both of them laugh. Abraham was blessed because he obeyed God. The same with Noah and Joshua and Caleb.
How to obtain ongoing happiness is linked with living forever because it is in the giving and in the losing, not in the getting nor obtaining in this world, that happiness and eternal life are achieved. This is also addressed on my page God Hath Made Me To Laugh! There are some great links on this page with regards to happiness.
The greeting of Living Forever is a royal one and I pray for all my readers to be living forever.
Beats me, why Americans stand a better chance to get to heaven, but it appears to be, at least, mathematically correct.
The never ever give up address is one of my favourite talks given by Naval Admiral William H. McRaven at the University of Texas at Austin. I believe that, to achieve anything in life that’s worth achieving, we’ll need to apply the tenacity spoken about by the Admiral. I’ve fought for my life and begged for my life to be restored to me and God is good and is answering my prayers and I’m so stoked that I want you all to know about it and laugh with me.
The thank you and dedication post as well as the, Why A Blog On Living Forever? posts explains who I am talking to about living forever and you’re very welcome to listen in.
Our baptism story relays our attempts to get baptised and what Jesus says about being born again.
If there is a church heaven then people who hang out with their church buddies may already be living in paradise and the rest of us will just have to figure out what the go is for us. According to scripture, obedience to God is closely related to living forever.
Who are the children of Israel? According to the bible, the children of Israel are those who consciously choose to align themselves with the Creator of heaven and earth. Those who purposely and deliberately choose to follow his guidelines are considered blessed.
The Samaritan story as told in the bible and relayed in the post, Is it possible to live forever? tells us in clear language that eternal life, according to Jesus, is linked with God’s Law and love and we’ll get into more detail about that later.
My story, I Thought It Was a Little Angel, talks about one of my personal experiences with depression and I learned from that episode in my life that despite our very best efforts, society hasn’t really got a handle on illnesses such as depression. Sometimes society’s methods works and often they don’t. God’s method has proven to be foolproof for my family and myself.
The story which has been voted the funniest religious joke of all times highlights the hypocrisy of religious people when it comes to loving each other.
Jonah’s story shows us that God cares about those who do their own thing as much as He cares about those who profess to follow Him. That is exactly what made Jonah so mad, the fact that God is merciful to all and not just to the religious few.
all rights reserved copyright myemmanuel 2014
The rest of the story.
One of my fellow bloggers and new found friend, Meredith, asked; “Please tell me the rest of your story, where you were baptised.” I could respond by saying; “Stay tuned, I’ll get to that eventually.” But I said that already to another fellow blogger Inspiring Max who said that she’ll be interested in hearing about it (my story) and laughing with me.
I don’t want to be seen as someone who is fobbing people off so I will answer the question regarding baptism next and I promise to tell later why God hath made me to laugh.
Click here if you haven’t read the first part of our baptism story.
The bible is the authority on things religious.
Our planned baptism was for me one of the most significant events in my life. To be baptised was more momentous to me than it had been to get married or give birth; precious and special as these occasions were. The events surrounding our planned baptism left us bewildered and in turmoil. At the time we did not understand what was going on at all and felt confused and rejected and abandoned. These emotions were quickly followed by clarity and elation as soon as we understood that the church is not God. Nor does the church always represent God.
I am convinced that the majority of religious leaders mean well but I also know that the Bible is the Word of God and therefore, as far as I’m concerned, the Bible is the authority on things religious and not the church nor their leaders.
Church doctrine and politics
What my daughters and I had gotten caught up in is just your regular church doctrine and politics. There were issues playing in the background of which we were completely unaware at the time. For instance we discovered later why we had to ‘sign up’ with the church and agree to abide by their doctrine in order to be baptised. Most churches expect their members to contribute ten percent of their income to the church and we would no longer have been in charge ourselves as to where to make our donations. In hindsight this could have been a smart move because in those days I was going into debt at a rate of around ten grand a year. Had I partnered with the church, they could have carried some of this. That’s meant to be a joke btw to lighten this tale up a little.
As an aside .. feed the hungry
As an aside, our favourite charity feeds one hungry child for a whole month for only six bucks. We don’t think it gets any better than that. If the only thing any of us would do is feed one hungry child each month for just six bucks, I wonder if that could prevent children all over the world dying from hunger?
Back to church doctrine.
Back to church doctrine. The other thing, which we did not realise at the time either is that there are quite significant disagreements between churches for instance with regards to keeping the Sabbath or not keeping the Sabbath, baptizing adults or not baptizing adults and so on and so forth.
It is my understanding from reading the Bible that in Jesus’ day all followers kept the Sabbath and all people joining themselves to the LORD were baptised. Jesus himself kept the Sabbath and was baptised.
All my daughters and I wanted was to be baptised and celebrate this with our whole town. Whilst we were washing and ironing our pretty white dresses and shopping around for cake and flowers, all our pastor and his mates seemed to be focused on was to preserve the status quo. To them this meant that we had to sign on the dotted line and our non-denominational pastor seemingly was not considered ‘worthy’ to baptise us because he was not registered with a church.
In addition, baptisms are apparently meant to be quiet private church affairs, not to be opened to the public.
But all our friends are ‘the public.’
We had never distinguished between believers and non-believers and we certainly didn’t intend to start doing so now.
The Bible on baptism
The three of us continued reading the Bible and discovered that the Bible does not tell us that we need a years worth of indoctrination before we are baptised. Quite the contrary.
The Bible does not tell us that baptism needs to take place in a quiet secluded place either. Jesus was baptised in the Jordan river, at a public place by his cousin.
The Bible does not tell us that we need to sign up with a church or denomination to be baptised. Nor are we to be baptised in the name of a church or denomination.
What the Bible does tell us with regards to baptism is that we are to be baptised in the name of The Father, The Son and The Holy Ghost.
41,000 different Christian denominations
The Bible is very clear on what baptism entails. It is not complex at all. What is complex however is that there are approximately 41,000 different Christian flavours (denominations) and each of these churches has their own doctrine. If all churches were to follow God’s Word there would be no need for a church doctrine because the Bible would be their doctrine.
In Jesus’ day ‘congregations’ were named after the place name not after a particular religious flavour.
We follow God and His Son
My family follows God’s Word and his Son Jesus. We don’t do any of the flavours because as we discovered with our baptism, church doctrine often enough is not in agreement with God’s Word.
Jesus prayed for his disciples to be as one. Not 41,000 different flavours, but one.
Jesus also said, By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
In addition Jesus said, where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.
Our Baptism
My daughters and I make three, with Jesus is four and this is how we were baptised at that lovely place, the nice bright open clearing at our town’s river mouth where we originally planned for our baptism to take place. In the name of the Father, The Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
– all rights reserved copyright myemmanuel 2014 –
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ABOUT THIS BLOG – We’re researching the truth of living forever according to GOD’s Holy Word. Popular opinion tells us that everyone who ‘believes’ and has ‘faith’ will go to heaven. Is this true? I decided to ask the prophets about the truth of it all.
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Praying is Good
There’s nothing like a bout of misfortune to bring a person to their knees and inspire them to say a little prayer. I’ve done more than a little praying, I’ve done a lot. On my knees? More like flat on my face. Praying is good. It takes a lot of worry of our minds and puts it in the care of those who are way more capable than us to deal with our dumb decisions, stupid mistakes and regular uphill battles. Spending time praying gives us a chance to smell the roses, enjoy the breezes and be super duper grateful for all the blessings in our lives.
Once I realized how much smoother my life rolls with a little help from my friends up High, the next most obvious step was to get baptised. To be honest I had no idea what it meant really, I just knew that I wanted to be baptised. A couple of near death experiences helped point me in the right direction. Despite my ailings and failings I felt totally reborn and the idea of baptism felt just right.
Our ‘Non-Denominational’ Pastor
At a health resort during one of my more notable failed attempts for better health I asked the ‘non denominational’ pastor at the resort if he could baptise me. He said, that he had a better idea. How about he would come over to my house and teach me the Bible? I didn’t know. Thought I’d run it past my kids who were teenagers at the time. We all know what teenagers are like.
After I viewed my Catholic upbringing with a fair dose of skepticism my kids had been brought up to believe that the Eastern religions with the regular secret initiations and silent retreats were the bees-knees. As well as sharing Jesus’ parables I’d thrown in regular servings of New Age stuff and esoterism, mixed with Wicca, sprinkled with Taoism. All their lives my children dined on Syncretism Supreme a la Maison served on fancy occult platters.
I asked my kids what they thought about this pastor coming over to our house and teaching me the Bible. My kids said, ‘cool.’ So I told the pastor, ‘cool.’
The pastor came and taught us for more than a year. All three of us LOVED the Bible. We weren’t always 100% sure about the interpretation he gave to it. But we LOVED God’s Word. It made sense to us and put a lot of things in perspective for each of us. After a year it was time to get baptised.
Time To Get Baptised
We had big plans. We were going to invite the whole of town including the Mayor and we did. We chose a really lovely spot to be baptised at the river’s mouth. It was so exciting. We found in our combined wardrobes three nice long white dresses to wear on the day. A little lace but not too much, just right. We ordered the biggest chocolate cake in town and we had huge chocolate letters put on it. My little 5-year-old nephew who came over to visit for this big occasion all the way from the lower end of the Gold Coast to our place at the top of the Sunny Coast, said that it was the best cake he had ever tasted in his life. We could only agree.
The cake read, O, Taste and see that the LORD is good.
My bed spread doubled as a beautiful white damask tablecloth to dress our ‘cake table’ on which we also placed a few brochures on baptism. Because by then I had discovered what baptism is all about. The Bible is very clear on it.
It all felt holy and right. Jesus said, No one can enter into the kingdom of God unless he is born again.
I had been baptised as a little baby in the Catholic church and really had not much an idea of what this involved. This time around it was like a very strong inner urging which made me want to be baptised even before I had read much Scripture and understood what it all meant.
The date was set, the weather beautiful, our minds relaxed and at ease with a hint of excitement of what was to come.
A week or so before the big event, another pastor ‘mate’ came and visited. He wasn’t our ‘mate’ he was our pastor’s mate.
Signing On The Dotted Line
These mates had collectively decided that there were going to be a couple of changes. The suggestion was that it was not going to be our pastor who would do the baptizing but it was going to be the pastor’s mate, his mate’s dad and his mate’s granddad. The granddad was a retired pastor and the other two were both pastors in a local church. And could we please sign on the dotted line that we were going to join this church and follow their doctrine?
We thought about this for a fraction of a second and decided, no. We like non-denominational, that’s why we picked the pastor we picked.
Apparently, according to our pastor, he’s one of only three non-denominational pastors in the whole of Australia. So we said, ‘thank you that is a really nice offer to have us join your church and all that. And to have your dad and granddad go out of their way for us and come, risk getting seaweed tangled up in their shorts to baptise all three of us in one go, but you know what? We’ve been listening to this ‘non-denominational’ pastor’s Bible studies for over a year now and this has never been brought up before. We would just like to go ahead as agreed and be baptised by our pastor whom we know, as agreed at the river mouth with the whole of town invited to the ceremony.’
Think About It
They told us to think about it. We told them we thought about it. And liked it as had been agreed. They left. Then a few days before our baptism our pastor indicated that he had a better location for our baptism in mind. We had chosen a nice bright open clearing at our town’s river mouth with enough space to accommodate many friends and visitors. As I said we’d invited a lot of friends.
Only days before our baptism our pastor and his wife drove us around murky rivers in an adjoining town to entice us to change our mind re the location. It caused their four year old grand daughter who joined this little impromptu trip to exclaim, ‘yuk I would not go in there, there could be crocodiles.’ Our thoughts exactly. So we declined the offer of a murky river baptism.
The next day, the day before our baptism, this time after an invite for an impromptu boat trip by the pastor and his wife, we declined the offer of baptism at a tucked away little corner of a little inlet, which would not accommodate the crowd we anticipated.
Needless to say that our baptism was cancelled.
Who Baptises?
We did a bit more reading up about baptism and the Bible tells us that if someone wants to be baptised, you stop then and there and baptise that person. Got that? One does not need a years worth of indoctrination to be baptised. That is not how it works according to the Bible.
It is not the church either, which does the baptizing. Nor the pastor nor the denomination.
We are baptised in the name of The Father, The Son and the Holy Ghost.
This could happen in a bathtub in your home or the dam or pool in your back yard. If any one tells you differently, ask them which church they are with or what denomination.
Baptism is between you and God and His Son and the Holy Ghost. If someone asks you to sign on the dotted line before your baptism, ask them about their church doctrine. And if their answer is not, ‘Our Bible is our church doctrine’, I suggest you run. Unless you want to get sucked in or unless you actually like the church doctrine they present you with. That’s totally fine.
Just don’t confuse it with God’s Word.
If occasionally my finger slips and you’ll read demonation and church doctoring, you’ll forgive me, won’t you. We all bare our scars.
God Is Awesome
What did this teach us? God is awesome. His Word and His Son, I’m just head over heels. There’s no church doctoring or demonation that will be able to touch that.
Be aware of false prophets. They are literally everywhere. And come in any shape or form, particularly the one you expect the least such as pastors and health workers. If you read or hear anything anywhere which is not in line with God’s Commandments or His Son’s Word and actions, that means there is no light in it. God, His Word and His Son, they are the Light.
Alleluia
all rights reserved copyright myemmanuel 2012 reprinted with permission from the LORDsPub
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ABOUT THIS BLOG – We’re researching the truth of living forever according to GOD’s Holy Word; Sola Scripture. Popular opinion tells us that everyone who ‘believes’ and has ‘faith’ will go to heaven. Is this true? I decided to ask the prophets about the truth of it all.
ABOUT THE CONTENT – All content on this website is copyrighted and you can read more about this here. Please also read the disclaimer about my authority and qualifications.
ABOUT SCRIPTURE CARDS – If you want to send free Scripture Cards to your friends click here and you you want to buy hard copies of Scripture Cards you can click here. To download a free copy of my Story of Survival click here.