Is water baptism a "work" ? Let's grow up and move on

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Timo316@aol.com wrote:
> No thorough write-up here, but following the logic of "any task"=work
> mentality, would that make repentance a work as well? God does the work in
> baptism, not us, but true belief necessitates action. In other words,
> obedience.

Dave:
There are many things written in the Bible that we must follow and obey.
For example, many major on the baptism issue. However, there are other
requirements in order to maintain our salvation. Such as (1) We must
walk in the love of God or we won't make it in, no matter how much one
speaks in tongues or think how spiritual they are - See I Cor. 13 (2)
One must forgive in order to be forgiven - Mark 11:25 (3) Without faith,
it's impossible to please God - Heb. 11:6 (4) Fearful people won't make
it in - Rev. 21:4 (5) Those who are in the flesh cannot please God...and
the list goes on and on. We are to "work out our own salvation...so why
does "water" baptism have to be the main emphasis here? I thought this
was the "elementary" level in our Christian and are suppose to leave
those basic principles nad move on to maturity - Hebrews 6:1-4. Please,
no need for a rebuttle when the Apostle Paul considers "baptism" an
elementary principle that we are to leave behind and move on to greater
things. Seems that many camp out at water baptism as if that is more
essential than the other points I brought out which should be carried
out in our daily life.