How can I get baptized? My father is a Muslim and won’t allow it
Question:
I don't know if you will be able to reply to this, but I hope you will and I will try anyway. I'm a 14-year-old girl who has a Muslim dad. I want to give my life to Christ. I found a site a few years ago that said if I prayed the sinner's prayer and confessed in my with my mouth that Jesus is Lord, I will be saved. I did just that. I found your answer on a page that explained how to become a Christian. It says we must go through baptism. Now my problem is, my dad won't let me go through baptism because he is a Muslim. I can't even go to church. It isn't my fault. Does this mean I am not saved? Please help me, please.
Answer:
My duty is to teach what God has said. "Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen" (I Peter 4:11). It isn't my place to tell anyone something different than what God said.
There is no passage in the Bible that talks about a sinner's prayer. So what you read on another site was not accurate information. Baptism is necessary to enter into a covenant relationship with God. "And in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions" (Colossians 2:11-13).
It is not a "do it once and forget about it" event. Becoming a Christian is a lifetime commitment. "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions" (Luke 14:26-33). Sometimes what has to be given up to live as a Christian is quite severe.
Christianity is not a secret religion. You can't decide to be a Christian while pretending to be a Muslim. "Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven. Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to 'set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law'; and 'a man's enemies will be those of his own household.' He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it" (Matthew 10:32-39).
You'll have to decide what is more valuable to you, your father or Christ. Based on that decision, you'll have to figure out how to accomplish that goal.
