Being a God adventurer means that you sign up for the scavenger hunt of a lifetime, the treasure hunt of existence. It means that you live to search out the beauty of souls coming back to their creator for freedom, restoration and life. I have found some of the world’s most radiant, priceless and breathtaking diamonds and pearls in shallow kiddy pools. Seriously.
“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17
When a newly saved disciple decides to symbolically lay their former life down in water and rise up as this new creature, they become the object of our treasure hunt. They are immediately transformed into priceless gems, sons and daughters of the King!
During the week of Christmas in Ethiopia, five young men met Jesus in our Saturday night Church meeting. That next brilliantly sunny afternoon, after Samuel had spent time discipling them about baptism in water, they met inside our compound’s gate, altogether ready to symbolically lay their lives down and begin walking the rest of their existence and eternity thereafter with Jesus. However, our base was without water, sending some missionaries, translators and other disciples on a quest to obtain jugs which would eventually fill the homemade baptismal we had constructed from four benches, a tarp and a few bricks. The compound full of both new and old believers erupted in “Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!” when these newly baptized young people rose from the water!
In Bulgaria we would load the disciples up in our blue minibus and drive to the hot springs for baptisms. Nestled between the mountains and winding right alongside the railway, one river divvied up into four different pools of shallow water that actually rose right up out from the ground continuously, brewing the perfect pockets of natural spa-treatments and organic baptismal tanks. We laid our sneakers and towels on the rocks and bushes that lined the water and dove down to uncover more treasures in the Kingdom!
At the base in Khon Kaen we would drag out the hose, fill up a small, blue, plastic tub on the street opposite the psychic shop and claim our jewels for all to see!
God loves to kiss the obedience of His kids in the area of baptism with crazy faith and joy. Finding the treasure of a new creation is not only for the benefit of that person, but also for you. Something unexplainable yet powerful happens in the water when lives are being transformed that electrifies the entire atmosphere, making it one of the greatest testimonies to encounter in the entire world. Begin your scavenger hunt and claim His gems!
