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To: HKMk23

How do you make a personal declaration of faith in Christ without knowing His name? Will Buddha do?


236 posted on 07/01/2005 12:28:54 PM PDT by The Ghost of FReepers Past (Legislatures are so outdated. If you want real political victory, take your issue to court.)
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To: The Ghost of FReepers Past
How do you make a personal declaration of faith in Christ without knowing His name?

If God, in His mercy, began through the Holy Spirit to make me aware that my pagan gods, or Buddha, or whatever my people believed in was hollow, and that there was, indeed One greater in Whom I ought place my faith, then I should expect that, if I were obedient to the Holy Spirit's guidance, upon my death I would see Christ and immediately recognize that He was the One in whom I had believed, though I knew not his Name until that moment, only that He existed. This is the very essence of faith; that we know nearly nothing of our savior, but because of what has been revealed and our recognition that it is from God, we place faith in the little that we know and follow in obedience.

If you are lost in the Yukon wilderness and I show up and tell you, "Follow me and I will show you the way out," is it necessary that you know my name in order for you to receive the salvation I offer? No, it is not. You merely must have faith that I truly do know the way and that, if you follow me, you will be saved; you simply place faith in my declared role. In the same way, savlation in Christ is contingent upon our knowing His Name only because His Name is synonymous with His declared role: Christ, Messiah, Saviour. This is as simple as our believing that declared role, and our ensuing act of faith in committing to follow the One who has that role; Whom the Holy Spirit has revealed to us.

Since God has been faithful to reveal Himself to men through His creation (Romans 1), if a man responds in faith to that revelation of God, how would God not also be faithful to save that man? But where man has failed so often is in ascribing the awareness he is receiving through the creation to something other than God, himself. To Buddha, perhaps, or some nebulous, New Age 'great cosmic all' concept. But, if a man responds to the revelation of Gos that is apparent in creation, believes that God exists and earnestly seeks Him, that man will surely be rewarded by God (cf. Hebrews 11:6), and that reward will NOT be a one-way ticket to Hell.

277 posted on 07/01/2005 1:12:04 PM PDT by HKMk23 (A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel. -- Robert Frost)
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