When a person says they repent and are baptized accept them and their faith and trust the Lord.
How do we respond to a person when a person says they repent and are baptized? Accept them and their faith and trust the Lord….. by Kevin E. Jesmer 2-18-14
Acts 2:37-38. “37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (ESV)
There are times when we urge people to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus. When we use the word, repent, we look for some certain level of attained behavior. We think that if your truly repent, then a person will reach a certain level of Christian performance. If they have not reached that level of performance then we even doubt if they have ever repented to begin with. But this is not right. There are lots of people whose lives have been ravaged by sin. They may even have brain damage. They have experienced trauma upon trauma. They have never held a job. After repenting and being baptized in the name of Jesus, they are saved and they are children of God. But their level of Christian performance may never be what we expect. We need to accept that. We need to stop basing our acceptance of people on how well they perform as a Christian. We need to see their faith and their love for the Lord and their hope and trust in Jesus. If God accepts them, then God accepts them. We need to let the Holy Spirit of God work in his the life of his children.
I always remember one Christian, who had one Bible student. The Bible student accepted Jesus but struggled with the basic activities of life. The person ended up living, at an early age, in a nursing home. But the missionary visited faithfully to talk, pray and study the Bible with this person until the person finally went to be with the Lord. They never doubted that the person was a Christian. They were sharing sweet Christian fellowship. But the person was unable to even keep up with the activities of daily living. My wife attests to one person she knew. That person was lost in a world of drugs. But he loved Jesus and tried to overcome the best he could. God was at work in his life, sanctifying him. I had a Bible student who did not work. I was convinced that a sign of his repentance was that he would get and hold a job. But one day, a wise friend of mine said, “Kevin, he may never be able to work.” He was right. I let go of my unreal expectations and allowed God to work in that person’s life in his right time. What about me? I claim to have repented and I have. But that does not mean that I am perfect. In fact I am far from perfect. I hold onto the motto: “Be patient, God has not finished with me yet.” and, “Christians are not perfect, only forgiven.” The point is, we need to be patient with people and accept their faith and accept the way that God is working in their life. This may mean years, decades even a lifetime of struggling with things that we think are basic.
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