How to follow Jesus? How can we learn his way and follow him? We need a kind of faith in him which leads us to believe following him will really help us.
We do not know whether we will end up doing seriously wrong things in our lives. Maybe we already did such things. It might even include criminal things, things that get us in trouble. If we die in that state of guilt over such things it leaves us with that hanging over us, even after death, following us to future judgement day. And Jesus will be the judge of us all on that day. There are things we might do which can even bring us to an early death.
You need a man who knows the pitfalls, but is master at avoiding them. It needs to be someone you can put trust in: Someone to save you from doing such things yourself. God sent this man. God made this man his Son, anointing him to be the king who turns his people away from wrong doing and saves them from such a demise. This man is Jesus. Trust him. Then learn his way.
Jesus Christ died as sacrifice for your serious wrong doing, to deal with the guilt of it, satisfying the requirement of God in this. God raised him from the dead to live forever. Baptism is the action that commits us to his way, to learning it. Learning this way makes us his disciples. Baptism is a way to commit to this discipleship. This avails us of the benefits of following him; the benefits of his death and resurrection, and of the grace he gives to teach us. The Holy Spirit can be given you to help teach this way to you, and scriptures record the teachings of Jesus learned by specially designated, chosen apostles, sent out to teach it all. Jesus even sent one apostle, Paul, to teach those who are not part of Judaism, so the way of Jesus can be available to all. You need this.
