baptism! yeyeyey 18th december

18th December Today i was baptised in Australia. "we were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father we to may live a new life. if we have been united with him in a death like his we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his."- Romans 6v4.
This week we have been having lectures on lordship. I have been learning that worship is not all about me, I need to stop singing songs like "oh how he loves me" ...or... "when the darkness closes in lord still I will say" ... I am becoming a needy christian, just demanding love and comfort from God all the time. Don't get me wrong these songs are amazing , when we need to hear these words and need to feel loved. Yet, I already have the knowledge that he loves me and i know he is faithful. As Christians we need to start worshiping god for who he is, his character and how great, amazing and abundantly giving he is! We are not in a one way relationship with God, i always expect him to give, give , give to me, and my prayers usually resemble a shopping list and i never seem to give back the praise and worship he deserves. Religion teaches us to concentrate on ourselves, and our wrong doing , however we need to quit looking at ourselves, and look to Jesus in us. Who is perfect, righteous and faithful. It is not through our actions that we believe , it is because we believe we change and then our actions change. I never understood why people fasted, committed themselves to quiet times, or worshipped so dramatically . It's because they love God so much. I had no idea that I had such a passion to love my brothers and sisters here, until a few days ago when i realised that Christ lives in them as well, and because he loves me so much i want to love on them as well. The only way we can truly follow Jesus, is to pick up our cross daily and die to ourselves daily. I used to get so frustrated with God, believing that i was healed after one night in one random church in a healing service, then realising that this was only temporary. It's a battle every day, and many battles I will lose, of course, but , the war has been won. I have won! Jesus won, there is nothing i need to strive for or do, he did it , he made a public example, by dragging a cross , pining himself to it and dying for everything i have ever done , dying to all my suffering and pain. I have never understood what dying to myself meant or the extent of that. I have always desired the "easy christian life" , in which Jesus can fit nicely in to my life ... just for Sunday's , while i carry on practicing my sinful nature, and committing the same sinful behaviour,and knowing that Jesus will always be there for me to repent. However, Paul says in the Bible that "I will not give to god which costs me nothing"I was meditating on this thought , and i realised that, no, i probably would not give up my past my hope of being married, my every desire, i will not lay down my earthly possessions, or my need to control my food. Yet, when Jesus came to earth he lay down his all, he died for me. I realised that i needed to die to myself,I am dragging around a dead Esther with me, I am living in the past . That Esther is dead. God covered my sin with his blood. I want to walk in to the calling he has for me, i want to be the Esther he originally created me to be. Our speaker suddenly said during mid lecture, "i know what we should do , we should have a baptism, if anyone wants to be baptised?" Personally, I was baptised as a 4 month baby , so of course i had no choice in the decision. He gave us a few moments to decide, I prayed about it and I felt God say to me, there is no right time to do this , do you want to waste another day Esther? or do you want to be the new Esther i designed you to be ?! ... So, out of the 40 students in my school, about 7 of us decided they wanted to be baptised in my leader Noah's swimming pool... classy. Before hand, they had us all prayed for, by everyone, I had to speak out everything I wanted to say to God. It was so hard to lay down my everything and say goodbye to the past , to the false hope of a future with him, to my eating disorder, to the lies spoken over my life. My identity is not in how i look, or how much weight i lose or gain, not in pretty dresses, or a relationship and the value of that which was laid upon me ,Rather, it is in the girl that God has named me. He calls me by the name beautiful, by the name, loved. I am discovering and i have to constantly remind myself day by day, that God would never create anything ugly or disgusting , but everything beautiful and adored. When i stepped in to the water, Hannah lenz, my one on one said to me that she had a picture of God taking his right hand and pulling me up from the deep dark waters and when I come up I will be called Queen Esther. And i will have the authority and power in me to say NO to the enemy when he comes along,he has no right or place in my life. CHRIST LIVES IN ME! The same power that conquered the world lives in me, nothing is impossible for Jesus, therefore nothing is impossible for me. I am spotless, sinless and pure. Not only has God forgiven me but he has also obliterated my sin. He has made me a brand new creation. I am a slave of Christ, brought by the blood of Christ. A slave is not described because of the way we act but because of ownership. Romans 7 says In me dwells no good thing except Christ. So i went down in to the water , and when i came up i left all my sinful nature and all of myself at the bottom of the pool. I came up as God's child, prepared to be used for his glory in anyway he wants me to be used. I just wanted to run screaming, I WAS SO EXCITED.