Don't Drink the Water

By Alan Smith

    "My husband and I were cleaning the church building one evening and our three-year-old son was 'helping' us. We walked up to the baptistry to make sure nothing was in the water that shouldn't be and our son said, 'You can't drink that water.' I asked him, 'Why can't we drink the water?' and he replied, 'Because it has sins in it.'" (taken from "A Sunday Afternoon With the Preachers' Wives")
    It does seem to make sense, doesn't it? If all our sins are washed away at the point of baptism (Acts 22:16), it's easy to see how a child could mistakenly think they just collect there in the water. If that were really true, it would be important to drain the baptistry frequently!
    I'm thankful, though, that those sins don't collect in the bottom of a pool of water. They don't get piled up in a closet somewhere ready to be pulled out at a later time like a load of dirty laundry. They don't get stored on a hard drive in case a "search" needs to be made to find them. No! Thank God, they are removed, blotted out, wiped clean by the blood of Jesus Christ, and we are able to rise from the water a new creature!
    "As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." (Psalm 103:12)

- Alan Smith, minister for the Cruciform Church of Christ in Spring Lake, North Carolina, may be contacted at alansmith.servant@gmail.com or through the congregation's website: http://www.cruciformcoc.com/