ARE YOU SAVED YET OR WHAT?

Dear Friends,

Perhaps the two biggest questions asked by those who claim to be Christians are:

1) DO YOU KNOW JESUS?

or

2) ARE YOU SAVED?

These questions seem simple and nonthreatening to a person who feels they "know Jesus and are saved (by the blood of the lamb)" .. yet to those who are not "Christians" these same two questions can be seen as threatening or leading.

I, myself, feel the questions are actually too vague and need to be defined and qualified before anyone should ever attempt to ask them... and perhaps it is inappropriate to do so.

"WHAT?!!!, INAPPROPRIATE! BUT HOW ELSE CAN I SHARE THE LOVE OF JESUS"

Yes indeed I can hear many Christians screaming at me even now for suggesting these questions are improper... see, the reason they are improper is because the reason for asking is usually to proselytize people into accepting "YOUR VIEW" of who Jesus is and what it means to "be saved".

Remember, entrance into God's Kingdom is NOT based on numbers. No matter how many souls you "win for Christ" it matters not to God. There is no quota and (in my opinion) no obligation to PREACH to anyone... SHARE ..YES!.. Preach..no.

Sharing your faith however is a personal issue and if you intend to talk the talk..you better WALK THE TALK too or you would be no better than the the Hebrew Priests (Pharisees and Sadducee's) who Jesus of Nazareth (JoN) condemned more harshly than the prostitutes, extortionists (tax collectors) and thieves. JoN called these priests "Vipers & Hypocrites" and inferred they were worse than the average sinners because although they were sick themselves they refused to admit it and get help.

Anyway, back to the two questions...

First, To KNOW JESUS means more than saying a prayer, going to church and reading the Bible.

One can do all the ritual and ascribe to whatever dogmas and doctrines their "religion" teaches... they can claim Jesus is their best friend and do great works... yet even the Bible clearly points out that NOT ALL WHO CLAIM JESUS SHALL BE SAVED (sinless). Sadly, It says "many shall come and say on that day 'Lord (Jesus) did we not do great things in YOUR NAME' yet Jesus shall then say to these (who did not WALK THEIR TALK) "Depart from me .. I DO NOT KNOW YOU".

But then, if the name "JESUS" is not the saving factor then is it possible that more than just "Christians" WILL BE SAVED? Which indeed is Question #2 and instead of just answering it myself... I will let someone I normally do not quote too much do the answering...

THE POPE (before he was the POPE).

Here is an article regarding WHO CAN BE SAVED and I must admit.. I may not agree with all that he believes.. but this is pretty close to my view.

Are Non-Christians Saved?

In a 1964 sermon, the Catholic priest who later became pope discussed whether there is salvation outside the Church.
By Joseph Ratzinger

...Everything we believe about God, and everything we know about man, prevents us from accepting that beyond the limits of the Church there is no more salvation, that up to the time of Christ all men were subject to the fate of eternal damnation. We are no longer ready and able to think that our neighbor, who is a decent and respectable man and in many ways better than we are, should be eternally damned simply because he is not a Catholic. We are no longer ready, no longer willing, to think that eternal corruption should be inflicted on people in Asia, in Africa, or wherever it may be, merely on account of their not having "Catholic" marked in their passport.
Actually, a great deal of thought had been devoted in theology, both before and after Ignatius, to the question of how people, without even knowing it, in some way belonged to the Church and to Christ and could thus be saved nevertheless. And still today, a great deal of perspicacity is used in such reflections.

Yet if we are honest, we will have to admit that this is not our problem at all. The question we have to face is not that of whether other people can be saved and how. We are convinced that God is able to do this with or without our theories, with or without our perspicacity, and that we do not need to help him do it with our cogitations. The question that really troubles us is not in the least concerned with whether and how God manages to save others.

The question that torments us is, much rather, that of why it is still actually necessary for us to carry out the whole ministry of the Christian faith—why, if there are so many other ways to heaven and to salvation, should it still be demanded of us that we bear, day by day, the whole burden of ecclesiastical dogma and ecclesiastical ethics? And with that, we are once more confronted, though from a different approach, with the same question we raised yesterday in conversation with God and with which we parted: What actually is the Christian reality, the real substance of Christianity that goes beyond mere moralism? What is that special thing in Christianity that not only justifies but compels us to be and live as Christians?

It became clear enough to us, yesterday, that there is no answer to this that will resolve every contradiction into incontrovertible, unambivalent truth with scientific clarity. Assent to the hiddenness of God is an essential part of the movement of the spirit that we call "faith." And one more preliminary consideration is requisite. If we are raising the question of the basis and meaning of our life as Christians, as it emerged for us just now, then this can easily conceal a sidelong glance at what we suppose to be the easier and more comfortable life of other people, who will "also" get to heaven. We are too much like the workers taken on in the first hour whom the Lord talks about in his parable of the workers in the vineyard (Mt 20:1-6). When they realized that the day's wage of one denarius could be much more easily earned, they could no longer see why they had sweated all day. Yet how could they really have been certain that it was so much more comfortable to be out of work than to work? And why was it that they were happy with their wages only on the condition that other people were worse off than they were? But the parable is not there on account of those workers at that time; it is there for our sake. For in our raising questions about the "why" of Christianity, we are doing just what those workers did. We are assuming that spiritual "unemployment"—a life without faith or prayer—is more pleasant than spiritual service. Yet how do we know that?

We are staring at the trials of everyday Christianity and forgetting on that account that faith is not just a burden that weighs us down; it is at the same time a light that brings us counsel, gives us a path to follow, and gives us meaning. We are seeing in the Church only the exterior order that limits our freedom and thereby overlooking the fact that she is our spiritual home, which shields us, keeps us safe in life and in death. We are seeing only our own burden and forgetting that other people also have burdens, even if we know nothing of them. And above all, what a strange attitude that actually is, when we no longer find Christian service worthwhile if the denarius of salvation may be obtained even without it! It seems as if we want to be rewarded, not just with our own salvation, but most especially with other people's damnation—just like the workers hired in the first hour. That is very human, but the Lord's parable is particularly meant to make us quite aware of how profoundly un-Christian it is at the same time. Anyone who looks on the loss of salvation for others as the condition, as it were, on which he serves Christ will in the end only be able to turn away grumbling, because that kind of reward is contrary to the loving-kindness of God.

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Who "GET's SAVED" is really not up to you or I.. it is up to GOD ALONE.

I think the final verdict will surprise everyone... but I will let God take care of judgement.. I meanwhile will continue to do the MOST IMPORTANT CALLING..which is...

BE LOVE!

Be Love & Be Loved!