Preparing for Baptism
But is afraid of being immersed.
A SET FREE MINISTRY sharing by Tek and Goldie Chong
Sally (not her real name) was in the class preparing to be water-baptized. In our church, we practice full-body immersion. Sally was insistent she does not want to be immersed and asked if she could be sprinkled instead. We tried to find out why.
Sally did not know why but she said she never let water be poured over her head, not even when she took a shower or when she went swimming. We prayed together asking the Holy Spirit to bring up further information about this strange fear. Then she remembered that when she was young whenever her mother punished her, she would push her head underwater and hold it until she struggled to breathe. There we have the root cause of how fear was instilled into her.
Management of the Fear
Then we asked her if she had ever harboured any anger, bad thoughts, resentment, etc., against her mother. When she started to tell us that her mother most probably dealt the punishment out of ignorance and uncontrolled anger, we explained that she need not rationalise or find excuses for her.
She need only to admit that the act traumatised and hurt her. We saw that she had pushed those resentments and anger into her subconscious. Thus, the buried anger became a bitter root.
The spirits of anger and fear had also entered her vulnerable moment. We asked her to forgive her mother for what she did. She readily did so. We then led her to confess her sins of holding those hateful thoughts for so long. After her confession, we assured her of God’s forgiveness based on Scripture; ”if you confess your sins, God is faithful and just to forgive you your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9).
Removing Hurtful Memories
We then used the powerful Name of Jesus to cut off the traumatic memory, the circumstances surrounding it, the place, sights, sounds, emotions, etc., and asked God to remove the toxins and pull out the bitter root embedded inside her mind. Although she may still remember them, the toxic effect will no longer be there.
Following this we reminded her that she has been given the power and authority by Jesus to command the spirits of fear, hurt, self-pity, etc (whatever she felt was disturbing her) to be bound and cast out from her. This she did by using the powerful Name of Jesus and evil spirits have to obey and leave (Mark 16:15-17).
Completing the treatment, we prayed for her to be filled with the Holy Spirit who assures her of God’s truth as against the devil’s lies. She was set free from the whole incident because if ”Jesus Christ sets you free, then you are free indeed.” (John 8:36).
One week later, Sally underwent a full-body immersion baptism without any stress or incident.
