The still, small voice urged, “You need to be baptized again.”
Why? I wondered. I’d already been baptized twice, once as an infant, and again when I was twelve. But since I was baptized in the Holy Spirit, I’d become more sensitive to these intuitive knowings. And I knew their importance—if I wanted to know God’s peace, joy, and righteousness within me.
I struggled with this for some time. Finally I asked God, “Why?”
Immediately He said, “Because you never applied any faith before.”
I felt challenged by this: Never applied any faith? What does He mean?
Lord, give me revelation
I turned to my Bible and read Romans 6 over and over. They were only words on paper to me, without any meaning in my heart. “Lord,” I prayed, “please give me revelation concerning these Scriptures; make them come alive in my heart.”
“Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him…”
Then the reality hit me! It is through water baptism that sin loses its power over me, and I no longer have to serve it. Water baptism is far more than a testimony to the world. Unless we are born of water and the Spirit we cannot experience the kingdom of God (John 3:5).
As Ralph Nault says, “When we ask Christ into our hearts we receive eternal life! When we go through the water of baptism we become united with Christ in His death on the cross, we do not have any excuse to continue in sin because the old sin nature is gone. We can continue to sin but we don’t have to; we are not slaves to sin any longer.”
My doorbell rings
Once I understood the purpose of water baptism and was ready to apply my faith, I said to God, “Okay, I will do this, BUT I do not want my mother to know.” I knew she would not understand and it would hurt her.
So I made arrangements to be baptized at a nearby church. It was to take place on a Friday evening (1979). I was all set, but…
At four o’clock that afternoon, I hear by my doorbell ring. Who is at my door? I wonder.
My mother! I couldn’t believe my eyes. There she was, all the way from Michigan, along with her best friend and my sister. Mom had never before come to my house unannounced—let alone on the very day I am being baptized.
I thought, surely, this must be God’s doing. 
Who will I serve? God’s voice or Mom’s?
“Mom,” I gulp, “I’m so sorry, but I have to go out this evening. I am being baptized tonight. Would you like to go with us?”
Her face stiffened, and she shook her head no. “What’s the matter? Wasn’t your Baptist baptism good enough for you?” she asked.
Ouch! What could I say? I went to the service, hurting for my mother, yet knowing that I had to obey God’s voice, not my mother’s.
Question: Read Hebrews 6:1-2. Identify the six building blocks essential to a spiritual foundation (note, washings refers to baptisms). Do you have a strong spiritual foundation? Ask the Lord to give you revelation about each of the six foundational stones.
(This how the Lord led me, He may not have led you this way. You can trust Him to lead you.)