Easter Monday 2014

Busy but rewarding weekend the highlight of which was being at a baptismal service in the grounds of Derwen Fawr, the Swansea Bible College and now home to Liberty Church. Ten people young and older were baptised on confession of their faith. Many different backgrounds - some with dramatic testimonies of being set free from all sorts of addictions and circumstances and others who had simply grown in their faith to the point where they wanted to be baptised in obedience and as a testimony to their commitment. I was particularly moved by one young man who simply read a portion of Ecclesiastes 2 as a testimony of how he had come to faith.

Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them.
I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure,
For my heart rejoiced in all my labour;
And this was my reward from all my labour.
¹¹ Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done
And on the labour in which I had toiled;
And indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind.
There was no profit under the sun.

It reminded me powerfully of the months before I finally acknowledged my need of God and the salvation that He has offered freely through the death of His dear Son. That was some 35 years ago now but it is good to be reminded because the temptation to get my priorities wrong is still a powerful one - a temptation to which I have often given in along the way.