Last week, Republican Presidential hopeful, Marco Rubio, opened up about his faith, what it means to doubt one’s faith, and where he turns in times of tumult and challenge. His candid response caught the attention of many Republican Christians.
That was until this video surfaced. At an event organized by American Renewal Project in Iowa, Sen. Rubio shared the gospel with a large audience of pastors. Like his previous answers on the matter, Rubio spoke at length of peace. Not “hippy peace” as he called it, but the “peace that we are ordered to.”
For five minutes forget about politics, forget about your personal candidate preferences and just… listen.
CBN, who originally obtained the video, provides the broader context of Rubio’s Christian beliefs:
Rubio is Roman Catholic but he and his family also attend (from time to time) Christ Fellowship, a non-denominational evangelical church in the Miami area.“I didn’t learn about the Catholic Church until I went to a non-Catholic church (Christ Fellowship) and became infused in the Bible and became infused in the written word of God and then, and only then did the liturgy of the church start even making sense,” Rubio told the pastors. “I am fully, theologically and doctrinally aligned with the Roman Catholic Church and we attend it. But we retain our relationship with Christ Fellowship and I’ll tell you why: because they preach from the same Bible.”As for presenting the gospel, he didn’t hold back and thoroughly enjoyed talking about Jesus.“Imagine the fear of knowing you’re about to be scourged, nailed to a cross, hung naked, humiliated, spit upon, rejected by your friends,” Rubio told the pastors. “There is nothing that we will ever face that He did not face times infinite amount. To me, that is the personal relationship. It’s a personal relationship with a God that knows anything we faced because He faced it more than we are able going to be able to face it.”…Rubio uses Peter’s life as an example of being infused with the Holy Spirit.“Peter was a deeply flawed man, impulsive, angry, given to judgment. God turned his weakness into his strength. Peter saw Jesus walk around and he dove at Him, lunged at Him because that’s how impulsive he was. They came to arrest Jesus in the garden, first thing he (Peter) did, pulls out the knife and cuts Malchus’ ear off. Impulsive,” he explained. “But once he was infused in the Spirit, that impulsiveness was used as a tool for God’s plan. All the gifts that God had given him that at one time were a liability God turned into strength. And so that’s where the Spirit comes to play in our life. We are all gifted with different things, and they could very well be a weakness today, but God can turn that into strength.”
The full version of Rubio’s remarks are here:
And if you’d like to read the transcript, you can do so here.
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