My daughters would get these little color change books to draw in. They were like coloring books, but you would simply add water to a brush and “paint” in the book. Suddenly, the colors would come to life! Beautiful, vibrant colors would now show up where there was nothing but dull paper before. All it took was the water.

When a believer in Jesus Christ gets baptized, it may seem simple enough. A person gets dunked in water. Then what?

Baptism is an outward showing of an inward commitment. The Bible says that when you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are “born again” into a new, eternal life. Just as we pass through water during our natural birth, we must pass through the waters of our supernatural birth as well. It may not make sense to non-believers. Sometimes it doesn’t even make sense to us, the ones actually getting baptized.

It doesn’t have to make sense. The Bible says that this is all foolishness to people who are dying, but to us, it’s the power of God for our salvation. I don’t need to know how electricity works to turn on a lightbulb, I just need that light to shine my way through the darkness.

My children didn’t know how the colors on their book would just come to life, they just knew that when they used the water on the paper, their picture would eventually come into a new, brilliant view. That same thing happens when new believers are baptized. Things don’t just get great and wonderful immediately. You don’t suddenly see Jesus in everything, but it’s a start.

Through baptism, your sins get washed away form your soul, much like dirt is washed away from your body during a bath. Someone who is very dirty will look and feel completely different after a bath. They’ll know it and see it, whereas if you didn’t think that you had a lot of dirt on you to begin with, you may not recognize much difference after getting out of the bathtub. The trick is that we all have a lot of dirt on our souls, we may just not recognize it very well.

At my baptism, it was like I stepped through a doorway into Heaven itself. I felt joyful and almost launched out of the water!  But when I came home, I looked just the same as before. I kept making many of the same mistakes. My favorite sins were still hard to stay away from. I outwardly looked like I did before, but inside I felt like something had happened. I didn’t see the whole extent of it immediately, but day after day, I started to come closer to the Jesus that made my salvation possible.

The colors started to show out more in my life. I made conscious efforts to be more kind and helpful. I started to at least try and do better. I felt like I wanted to stay clean and finally felt like that was possible. That doesn’t mean I didn’t still mess up, it just meant that I recognized it when I did and even stopped sometimes before I could. It has been a long process and that process is not over. It won’t be over until the day I pass from here to eternity. However, I do have the complete assurance from God Himself that I will be going to Heaven. He promised.

Jesus paid for my sin on the cross. When I was baptized, it showed the world that I let Him have it. Since then, God’s brilliant colors have started to shine forth more and more in my life. No more of the sad and dull greys of this world. My picture is starting to come together for people to see, and what they see in my life is a picture of Jesus Christ. That’s the greatest picture of all.

Your life can shine forth the colors of Jesus Christ as well. Just add water!

God’s blessings to you.

DH