All world religions tout the golden rule but only Jesus came to help us keep it. To even begin to understand the nature of God you must reconcile the three seminal characteristics of God. We all know God is loving, holy and just. God never stops loving us even when our sins separate us from a holy God who cannot abide sin. God never stops loving us even when His justice requires that He judge us for those sins. God’s love, holiness and justice all intersect at the cross to become one for our redemption.
John 3:16 – For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Matthew 1:21 – And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.
The work of Jesus on the cross is complete. We aren’t required to do anything else to receive eternal life. We need only accept God’s gift of salvation by accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. All other world religions require men to do things to earn their way to heaven and there is no way to determine if you’ve done enough. That is no way to live. It’s spiritual bondage. Christianity is the largest religion on earth with two billion believers.
Buddhism began with Gautama Siddhartha, “Buddha”, who was born in 563 BC in India. He taught nirvana was achieved by the soul being absorbed in to the supreme spirit through the emptying of self, through eliminating desire. There are 520 million Buddhists. In Hinduism there are millions of gods but Brahma is the main god. Nirvana is the reunion with Brahma by a continuous cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth based on living a good life. You could move up or down from man, animal or insect. Hinduism has no single founder and there are 1.5 billion believers.
Heaven in Islam is a life of luxury with plenty of food and sensuous delights like 72 virgins for personal pleasure. Sounds like a man’s idea of heaven and not God’s. The way to reach heaven in Islam is to follow the five pillars of the faith which are repeating a creed, making a pilgrimage to Mecca, giving alms to the poor, praying five times a day and fasting during the month of Ramadan. Other than that, you’re free to kill, rape, pillage and plunder to your heart’s content. This sounds like something invented by someone bent on enslaving others for their benefit. Mohammed and Satan both qualify on that score. Islam began around 600 AD and today believers number 1.6 billion.
Witnessing for Christ