KAMILLA FÜREDI

„In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…” (1Peter 3,15)

Saying that faith in Him is a matter of the heart, we underscore Christ’s importance to the person. As it is often said, everybody believes in something, but our relationship with the Savior is not in that category. Let me illustrate this point. I believe in the institution of marriage, just like you do. There are millions agreeing with us, because we consider marriage to be the basis of a healthy society. But when it comes to my marriage, my covenant relationship with Gyöngyöm , as we have joined our lives together, we have parted with those millions still agreeing with us.

I believe, our personal relationship with the Lord should be viewed the same way. While we confess with millions the truths about His person and work, there is a deep, personal attachment, a covenantal form of life to be experienced by the individual believer, that can be the joy of two free individuals only.

The job of the Church is to direct the souls – with the help and blessings of shared experiences and beliefs – toward that deeper personal commitment.

Set apart Christ as your Lord! Your eternal future is not a consequence of shared convictions and experiences. It is based not on your membership in a church, but on your personal relationship with the Savior. He is the Head of the Church, because He is Lord in the hearts. (On this point, we obviously part with the Roman Catholic teaching on the Church.)

As I was meditating on this passage from the First letter of Peter, names of missionaries came to my mind, whose heartfelt dedication to Christ should be an inspiration for us. Would you pray for the missionaries you know and support, now? Christ set apart in the heart is not an idea in the life of the missionary. In order to be prepared for service, they leave behind the comforts of their homes, endure all kinds of hardships, immerse themselves in the lives of the peoples to be helped, and do all these in humility. Kamilla Füredi is such a sister, serving the Lord in Sierra Leone. As the election campaign begins in that small African country, we should all pray for the physical and spiritual welfare of our Brethren living and working there.

Today is the anniversary of a prayer meeting held at a Bible conference in New Jersey (in 1933), where leaders of the American Keswick movement asked the Lord to open the door for the evangelization of the native peoples living in Mexico. Unknown to them, on the other side of the Atlantic another group was praying for the same. The story of how “Cam” Townsend and his co-workers received the permission to enter the country, and in two years started the translation of the Bible into tribal languages, is a story of miracles. This endeavor became the first great outreach of the Wycliffe Bible Translators, a Protestant mission organization.