There are certainly many different religious beliefs on the planet earth. Certainly, we all need something to believe in, as we understand the frailty of life. A view of world religions reveals an emphasis on rituals. Practitioners of Islam face Mecca and pray five times daily. Catholics use rosary beads to assist in counting the number of Hail Mary’s prayed. Most Buddhists ritually stand before a Buddha or Bodhi-tree daily with clasped hands, in personal worship. Hindus perform a daily puja ceremony, first, looking at a picture of the family’s god; next, the family offers flowers, food or fruit to the god; and last, the family retrieves the food and eats it. Judaism emphasizes the mitzvah, which is a good deed. On the Day of Atonement, Jews reflect on the previous year to decide if they have done more good deeds than bad. Christianity is quite different than the rest, emphasizing relationships, not performance or ritual.
Islam teaches that it is a Muslim’s duty to kill the infidel, which is anyone who doesn’t believe that Mohammed is the only god. They have chosen to worship a child molester, who at the age of 53, married a 6-year-old girl, and had “relations” with her until he died at the age of 62. I have a personal understanding of why Muslims are so angry. When in Jordan, when the first “call to prayer” came from the minaret, it was around 5:00 a.m. If I had a submachine gun, I might have used it that morning. The poor people need more sleep! Sadly, Catholicism has traveled far off course from the beliefs of Christianity. The Bible says never to refer to a man as father, as only God is our Father (Matthew 23:9). So what do they call a priest? The Bible says not to repeat a prayer over and over again (Matthew 6:7), and the Catholics choose to overlook that verse, while praying to a woman chosen to be the mother of Jesus, yet she is not God. Jesus was resurrected from the dead, but Mary simply died. When God’s Word is not taken literally, and man intersperses his own ideas into the mix, problems occur. Buddhists and Hindus worship an object constructed by the hands of man, an idol. What kind of a god can man create? What is a piece of shiny metal going to do when you pray to it? Jews are close to grasping the truth, as there is nothing wrong with good deeds. Yet there is not a place in the Old Testament where God teaches that He grades on a curve. The Lord’s sliding scale is not an accountant’s balance sheet, with good deeds marked in black as assets and sins marked in red as liabilities. Instead, one sin makes a man a sinner, we are all sinners (1 John 1:10 and Romans 3:23) and the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).
There’s only one mark that will override the sins on our balance sheets, the mark that says we have decided to follow Jesus. When that occurs, all of our sins are washed away.
“Come now, and let us reason together,”
Says the LORD,
“Though your sins are like scarlet,
They shall be as white as snow;
Though they are red like crimson,
They shall be as wool.
Isaiah 1:18
The Master Accountant blots out our sins with White-out. It can even cover the scarlet ink made from blood used to keep track of our sins! How can you tell that Christianity is the only way to God? The Bible is the only document that teaches absolute truth. It doesn’t sugarcoat how great man is, but emphasizes that all men are sinners and need a Savior! We all know that men love to talk about themselves and their own accomplishments. Do you find it ironic that the Bible records the life of Jesus, written by men who believed with every fiber of their beings that He was and is the Living God? Some of the men doing the writing accomplished quite a bit with the hand of God ruling their lives, but the stories where not about them! Instead, they wrote of a humble Rabbi who taught them to love their enemies, not kill them. He is worth knowing! If you already know Him, He is worth knowing better! Spend time making that relationship closer today!
37 Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Matthew 22:37-40
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