Daddio, as a christian I would love to answer your questions-are you ready...: Would someone please explain to me what is meant by "being saved", "accepting Jesus as your savior", "witnessing Jesus as the one and only path to spiritual salvation", etc.
Let me explain the first two first, I'll get to the third one afterwards. When you "accept Jesus as your Savior", you are then "Born again". Heres the deal. Jesus is God.There is a heaven and a hell, and all of us will spend eternity in either one of those places. Hell is a place of torture and torment, but heaven is a place of eternal bliss and happiness where God lives. God wants us all to be in heaven-but there is one rule. God will not allow sin into heaven. The problem is that we are all sinners. Every single one of us has at one time or another commited some kind of sin. Our sins are keeping us out of heaven and we are all bound for hell. We all deserve hell because we all have sinned, some more than others.But God loves us! He has provided a way for us to escape hell!
Jesus went to the cross to show us his love for us. He was beaten before they nailed him to the cross. He bore our sins in his body. If we weren't sinners, he never would have had to go through that. God knew we were all headed straight to hell and there is nothing we can do to save ourselves, so He came to earth in the form of a person (Jesus)to provide the only way out of hell.
All you have to do is believe that Jesus is Lord and he died for your sins. Confess to Jesus that you are a sinner and and aknowledge him as the savior of the world, and ask him to save you and cleanse you from sin. You have to mean it with all of your heart though. Once you have done this you are born again. Born again means that your old self-the worldly sinner-no longer exists. You are now a new creation-you are forgiven and you are living for Jesus. You have accepted Jesus as your savior. Jesus died to save you. Will you accept his gift of eternal life? Or will you reject him and go to hell? This stuff is all in the bible. Once you have become a christian, you should read the Bible. The bible explains how Christians are to act and live by and it is how God speaks to us today. It says Jesus is coming back. He said it himself. I hope you are ready.
As for witnessing Jesus as the only path to salvation-that's what I just did. It is the duty of every Christian to tell the world that only Jesus saves.
: These seemed to be the primary tenets of christianity. They are dished out in excessively generous portions with little or no clarification on what they mean or how one goes about fullfilling them. This has always struck me as being very peculiar since it is the fullfillment of these tenets that allegedly keep us from being eternally damned in a pit of flames.
Thats right-out of pure love, Jesus did his part to save us. We Christians are doing our part by sharing his love with you. The reason we are sharing this out in extremely generous portions is because we love and care for others and we want you to know that there is a way to escape hell.
: You'd think that a game with stakes this high would come with crystal clear instructions that could not possibly be missinterpretted, but alas, all explanations I have receive to date either contradict each other, contradict themselves, or pile on more ambiguity.
But there are crystal clear instructions, God's word, The Bible. That's where we Christians get all this stuff from. As for all the contradictions, if the Bible dosen't say it, I don't believe it. Some people might tell you that being baptised will save you, or saying a few hollow prayers might save you or being good or giving money might save you. That is all bull. The bible clearly states that only through the blood of Christ on the cross there is salvation.
: Am I the only person that has this Alice In Wonderland kind of experience with christians?
I completely forgot what Alice in Wonderland was about. It has been years since I've seen it
None.
