Have I truly turned from my sin and been baptized in Christ, so that I will one day inherit eternal life?

14 After John was put into prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"

 Mark 16:16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

INSIGHT:  Even if we come to Christ because we desire the love of the Father, it is perverted in His eyes, if it’s not done so with the understanding that you need to first be forgiven of all your sins against Him.  God did not send Jesus Christ primarily to meet our needs, fix our problems here, or to give us a heavenly sense of lovey dovey. He sent Jesus first to destroy the devil’s work (1Jn 3:8), take away our sins (Jn 1:29), reconcile us back to God (2 Cor 5:19), and to save us from eternal separation from Him in hell (2 Thes 1:8-10), all of which are dependent upon our repentance.

 You won’t hear this offensive word in many “sermons” today, but the first recorded public word by John the Baptist and Jesus Christ was “repent”.  Our flesh hates the word because we love our sin.  But in our spirit, by faith, we must see that repentance is the doorway to being born again, reconciled to God for eternal life, and that it brings times of refreshment in this life (Acts 3:19).  Notice in Jesus’ teaching in v. 15, that “repent” comes before the “good news”.  The true gospel starts with the humiliation of accepting our sinful condition, so that we may receive His forgiveness.  If you skipped this step because your minister was too soft to tell you the whole truth, you may be one of those Jesus warned about, who try to enter in by climbing over the wall rather than entering in through the gate (Jn 10:1).  In the end it will count for nothing, and you may become like those professing Christians who stand before Jesus Christ expecting to hear “well done good and faithful servant”, but instead you may hear, to your great shock, “I never knew you”.  Faith without repentance is a false faith.  In the game of baseball, if you run all the bases and slide into home plate, but you forget to touch first base, you are still out!  First base with God is repentance.  Repentance is not just feeling sorry for one’s sins.  Godly sorrow leads to repentance, which is a radical and deliberate turning away from sin, and a turning to God, which results in moral and ethical change and action.  Just as there is a counterfeit faith, there is also a counterfeit repentance.  Both are recognized by their fruit and as one man of God said, there is a repentance that needs to be repented of.  True repentance is evidenced by the fruit, or deeds which result, (Mat 3:8).  True repentance will always be followed by noticeable changes in one’s life choices and actions.  Jesus used Zacchaeus the tax collector to show us an example of true repentance (Lk 19:8)

After our initial repentance and new birth, Christ then empowers us by His Spirit, to avoid living in any sin.  We may still occasionally stumble into a sin, but we will hate the sin.  We won't be able to continue in sin, if we are truly born again, and if we have not seared our conscience through repeated rebellion (1 Jn 3:6-10).  When we stumble into sin, we are to confess and repent again, whereupon God promises to forgive us our sins and purify us of all unrighteousness (1 Jn 1:9).

As it relates to baptism, my advice is, don’t get caught up in all the arguments about the thief on the cross, people on their death beds who can’t be immersed, and whether baptism is necessary for salvation.  Instead, just do it!  If Jesus himself felt the need to be baptized in water, how much more do we need to be baptized (Matt 3:15)?  It is a public profession of your faith, a pledge of a good conscience to God, and it powerfully symbolizes our dying with Christ, to our self and our sins, and being raised to newness of life in Him. I believe a person can be baptized by any other born-again disciple of Christ, not just by pastors or church leaders.