Discussion with my daughter about baptism

[Originalist]

Our 8 year old daughter has talked on and off for more than a year now about getting baptized. Tonight she said,

"I want to do it, but do I have to do it in front of people? Are you going to spread the news around?"

I replied,

"When you are truly ready to be baptized, YOU will WANT to spread the news around. You will want to tell everybody what Jesus did for you! Your reaction and questions let me know you are not ready and I really don't recommend you get baptized right now."

She was shocked. She thought we were going to pressure her to do it. I explained to her,

"Baptism isn't about us. It's about Jesus. It's all about making HIM happy. It's your declaration that you are renouncing the flesh, sin and the world to be a disciple of Christ just like Peter , James and John. Baptism is a surrendering of your rights to the authority of Christ. Baptism is a transference of ownership of the temple of your body to the One who purchased it with his blood so that he could live in it by his Spirit. Jesus wants YOU to be his house. When he moves in he makes everything new. But until you surrender to him, he can't. So until you are ready to do all that, don't get baptized, honey."

I love my kid enough to tell her the truth. The demands of discipleship are real. Jesus said, "If any man come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me". In another place he said, "He who seeks to save his life will lose it. But he who loses his life for my sake and the gospel will find it." Those are not idle words. It would be "cute" to see my daughter go through some church ritual, and without repentance, baptism is only that, a ritual. Paul said in Romans "by the Law is the knowledge of sin" and that by that moral Law "every mouth is stopped and the whole world becomes guilty before God" (Romans 3 19-21). I must give the moral Law of God time to give my daughter the knowledge of sin (or what God says is sin), stop her mouth (excuse making), and reveal to her guilt before God. Only then will she understand her need for a Savior and why Jesus had to die for her. Only then will she see why she needs a new nature imparted to her by way of the indwelling Spirit of Christ. Only then will grace truly seem "amazing" to her.

Please pray for our daughter. Amen.