The Gospel Name Of Jesus

What is the minimal content of a person’s faith to establish biblical assurance about spiritual safety?  This is not a question (minimal qualification) that a Christian should ask for self, and not one a knowing Christian would ask, except in reasoning about God and mankind – so to be rhetorical.  A knowledgeable Christian is growing (maturing), which is to say that there is a seeking of knowledge for wisdom in the holiness and affirmations of God affecting individual beliefs, motivations and conduct.  Christian life is a measure of the genuineness of the initial Christian experience of faith that relates to redemption.  If I am not living the life of Scripture instruction, I have reason to fumble with my claim to have become the child of God in the redemptive act of Jesus Christ, offered as the gift of God, and the only route we know about to the Kingdom of God.  My birth certificate in natural life implies social decency during that life, a given to it, not to be used as evidence of my worth or right to whatever God has prepared for human beings beyond the pale of nature.  In short, to gain hope to immortality as reality the person must follow the plan of God for qualification to citizenship in his Kingdom.  Christians accept the redemptive plan which is to refuse that which comes naturally (done by repentance), in affirming that which is spiritual (new beginning) – named as a new birth, or salvation, or redemption, by the act of God in recovery enterprise through Jesus Christ.  If genuine, this life is followed, to the degree possible, the new citizenship.  In many ways the new is markedly different than the old, and many ways similar, but with greater emphasis in assimilation and application of some factors, and reduction in others.  This maturing process is divine.

The question, however, relates to what is the minimal requirement (or requirements) for acceptance into assured relationship with the Sovereign of that Kingdom?  God, the Sovereign, knows the answer, and we can be sure that it is fair, loving, possible of achievement, adjusted to mankind’s competencies, and whatever else might be raised to determine through faith that heaven’s door is opened.  If all the passages of Scripture were toted up under various themes like citizenship, morality, faith, heaven, hell, world, and a hundred or so other factors of interest to Christian life, and those fractions (factors) related to Scripture, God and life were added to make up one hundred percent of what we ought to believe and become, the lowest common denominator needed to qualify for God’s kingdom becomes the response to the question with its revealed answer – What think ye of Jesus Christ and his relationship to you?  The answer is: I have received by effective faith in Jesus Christ as my redeemer and Lord of my life.  From this point forward (short for the penitent thief on the neighboring cross to that of Jesus on Golgotha, and long for the Apostle John, (a wrinkled and tired old man banished to the Isle of Patmos) everything is learning and practicing for righteous life and assignments belonging to immortality.  The thief gained entrance in the lowest fraction.

Jesus Christ is made a central figure even in natural life.  He is creator.  The West measures time by his arrival on earth.  The pollsters discover that he is regarded by most as the number one citizen of all time, rivaled only by Muslims with Mohammed, and the Far East with its origins, but remaining as the majority of all societies are taken into consideration.  Christ claimed an infinitely higher relationship to God than did Mohammed. Crude men and women use Christ’s name in swearing, in open disregard for his meaning – and may be expressing disdain for his followers.  Persons have died because they did not believe in him. and some died because they did.  Persons have made fun of his ideas, and others are depressed by irreverence for him, and disdain for his teachings.  This confusion is man-made, so continues in the tolerance of God, perhaps in liberties of freedom.  God is free and is forming mankind to be free.  Only persons qualifying for heavenly citizenship freely choose the status.  Human unworthiness clouds our awareness of freedom.  Penitence to God cuts through the jungle to faith.  God’s offer receives a range of responses from society.  Even Christians often garble the story.  Paul the Apostle wrote: Whether in pretense or in truth Christ is preached; and I therein rejoice. (Philippians 1:18)