BAPTISM

As you discern if your child is ready to be baptized, the following three questions and help you do so. The answers provided are only a guideline of answers you are looking for, even though your kid may answer using different vocabulary.

THREE QUESTIONS TO HELP SEE IF A CHILD IS READY TO BE BAPTIZED:

  1. When did you decide to follow Jesus and make Him your savior?

    -Ideally, each child should have an idea of when and where they allowed Jesus into their hearts, or, them saying a prayer and accepting Jesus as their savior. There should be some recollection of it happening, and what it meant when they accepted Jesus.

  2. What does it mean to be water baptized?

    -Being baptized means I’m following Jesus. It means I’m a Christian and I want to show the world by love for Jesus. It’s an outward picture of what Jesus has done on the inside of me.

  3. Why do you want to be water baptized?

    -Because Jesus was baptized and I want to follow Him, and He tells us to be baptized. I want to make Jesus my king and follow His ways.

DEVOTIONAL

Whether you decide your child is ready to be baptized, or they need to wait a little longer, this devotional is designed for them to understand even more the importance of being water baptized.

 1) Why do we get baptized?

  • We get baptized because Jesus himself was baptized (Matthew 3:13-17) and Jesus commands us to be baptized (Matthew 28:19-20).

  • When we are baptized, this is one of the first things we can do to follow Jesus. Jesus says that if we love him, we will obey him (John 14:15). We obey him not because we are trying to prove we are good people, but instead we obey him because of his love for us and we love him.

  • Typically, people get baptized after they accept Jesus as their savior. When this happens (accepting Christ by faith), we are brought into God’s eternal kingdom, not by anything we did, but by the grace of God (Ephesians 2:8-9).

 2) What does it mean to get baptized?

  • When we are baptized, it’s an outward picture of what happened in our hearts when we allowed Jesus to wash away our sins. When we prayed for Jesus to be our savior, our old spirit and “life” died, was buried, and a new self was raised again in our spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13).

  • People go all the way under the water when getting baptized because we are burying our old selves and the past sins with Jesus’ death (Colossians 2:12). When we come up out of the water, we are showing and saying that Jesus has given us new life, just like Jesus obtained a new life through his resurrection, or coming back to life after being dead. Water baptism is an outward showing of an inward transformation.

3) What happens after a baptism?

  • Will we still mess up and sin after accepting Jesus and being baptized? Yes! However, God loves us so much that we can still ask for forgiveness for those sins. We need to do our very best, every single day, to live like Jesus after accepting him and being baptized. 

  • Jesus wants to be three things in our lives: our savior, king, and friend. After we accept Jesus and his acts as true (meaning we believe He is our savior), we make Him our king by obeying Him and following Him, and then our friend by praying Him and learning about Him.