At times, God’s commands may seem ridiculous. Why ask Noah to build an ark when no one had ever experienced rain? “Make yourself an ark of gopher wood…” (Genesis 6:14). Or instruct the Israelites to march around Jericho’s walls for seven days to make them crumble (Joshua 6:1-20)? We might think, “God, what’s the point of this?”

Friend, we need to remember that God’s ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:8). He sees the bigger picture that our limited minds cannot comprehend. When we obey His commands, even without understanding the reasons, we open the door to His blessings.

Consider Naaman, the mighty Syrian army commander suffering from leprosy. “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored” (2 Kings 5:10). This was God’s Prophet Elisha’s odd prescription for healing. Naaman also was angry at this “humiliating” prescription. But his servants urged him, “If the prophet had told you to do something great, wouldn’t you have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, ‘Wash and be clean’?” (2 Kings 5:13)

Naaman swallowed his pride, obeyed God’s seemingly foolish command, and “his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean” (2 Kings 5:14).

Similarly, God’s command of baptism in water for salvation can seem puzzling. Yet this is precisely what the Bible teaches as the moment when we are “buried with Him by baptism into death” and raised to “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:3).

Friend, “And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name” (Acts 22:16).