(Copy of a Letter I send to people recently baptized)

So now what? Some people get baptized and then begin to wonder what’s next. Some people expect once they step out of the water they will be able to understand the Bible perfectly and never struggle with sin and temptation again. The opposite could not be more true. One of the first things you can expect after the celebration of your baptism is to be tempted in large and small ways by our enemy. Did you know that you have an enemy? (More on your enemy in  a little bit.) You know you have a friend and rescuer in Jesus Christ as you were buried with Him in baptism and raised to walk with Him in a brand new life. It is important to know who your friends are, and it is most important to know Jesus as your best friend & Savior for all eternity. But all Christians also need to realize and recognize we most certainly have an enemy who deeply desires to destroy us and our relationship with Jesus and His Church. This enemy is Satan and he tried to get Jesus to sin after His baptism, so you can expect Satan will try to get you to sin too. Our enemy will often try to convince you that your baptism was just a passing fling or nothing all that special. But Satan is the “Father of lies,” and we need to hear the truth.

The truth is you are loved. You are loved perfectly and eternally by the only true God who created the universe and made you wonderfully in His own image. Our awesome God made you in His image so that you can get close to Him and know His love for you. You need to get as close as possible to God by communicating with Him. If you are close enough to your friends you know their preferred modes of communication. Some friends like to communicate by text message and others prefer to talk face to face while others would rather chat on the internet. God is similar to your friends because He also has His preferred modes of communication, and He wants you to talk with Him always. This is why God has given us so many great ways to talk with Him and get closer to Him.

Pray like crazy. If you never talked to your friends, you wouldn’t know much about them and they wouldn’t know much about you. The same is true with God. He wants you to talk with Him. The good news about prayer is that you can do it anytime and anywhere. We can pray silently or out loud. We should spend time alone with God in prayer and also pray with others. The Bible tells us we are to “Pray without ceasing.” To learn more about the kind of prayer that pleases God, go get your Bible and take a good slow read through Matthew 6:5-13.

Dig in to the Bible. We have been given such a great gift in God’s word, the Bible.  Sometimes the Bible can be difficult to comprehend, especially if you try to read it from the beginning like any normal book. Instead of reading the Bible from the beginning, I would encourage you to start by reading the Gospel of John so you can know more about the life and work of Jesus. After you read through John, I encourage you to read through Ephesians & then find a Bible reading plan that keeps you grounded in God’s word. 

Be the Church. You can’t live a life of effective faith on your own. You have to have Jesus, and He has given us the Church to share our faith, hope, and love with each other. So, please make it your die-hard habit to be a part of the life-changing ministries that are going on in our church and in your neighborhood and around the world. Jesus has saved you from your sins and He has saved you to live a life like His that seeks to reach out to people who are far from God and help them to become fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ.

[Romans 8:1-2] So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.  And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.