1 Peter 3:21
...and this water symbolizes baptism...the pledge of a good conscience toward God.

"My name is Paul Jenkins and I approved this message."

If you're anything like me, you're pretty tired of the political ads by now. Not that there's isn't a need to know where politicians stand on the issues, but at some point it just feels like overkill. And it's hard to actually believe that what we're hearing in the ad is actually ever going to come true. In fact, if we were honest, we would admit that we don't actually expect any politician to keep his or her promise; we just expect them to promise what we want to happen even though we're pretty sure it's not ever going to. Now I'm not writing this evotion to give politicians a hard time, but rather to ask you a hard question. But, before I do, allow me to take a minute and explain the verse above...

Last night our church held a baptism service. It was special for me because I had the opportunity to baptize my sons, Parker and Will. I realized that most of us don't really understand what baptism is all about. We know it's got something to do with water but we're pretty sure it's more than just getting dunked in a pool. We know that there's something about it that cleanses us but we're pretty confident that it's different than a bath or a shower. But if pressed, we probably couldn't come up with much of an answer to the question "What is baptism?" But our verse does. And it all hinges on the word "pledge."

That word was used in business to describe the endorsing of a business contract. It really isn't that different from the word "approved" which we've been hearing used by politicians for months now. When we're baptized we are endorsing the work that Jesus has done in our lives. We're "sealing the deal!" But there's a real danger, too. If we come up out of that baptismal pool and our lives are not any different, then we've become no different than the politicians who promise - "endorse" - something and then don't back it up. And how sad that the world has begun to view the things Christians say in the same vein as politicians. "Oh," they think, "just give that Christian enough time and there life will contradict everything she just told me." They expect us to fail because we've been endorsing the grace of God in our lives but not living it out by giving His grace to them.

It's time to either live what we say or stop saying it, because if there's one thing we don't need more of in this country, it's liars.

PAID FOR BY THE COMMITTEE TO RE-ELECT PAUL JENKINS TO AN OFFICE HE'S NEVER HELD.