How many of you still are struggling with the question: which religion is the way to God? Some of you may still be thinking perhaps all of them have validity and could get you there. Others are undecided as to which one. I think it is time to tell you WHY Christianity is the only way. To do that, I'm going to focus on one thing - the tendency of Man to want to make up his own god.
EASTERN RELIGIONS
There are literally thousands of religions to choose from. The great bulk of them, including Hinduism, Bai Hai, Yoga, and Hare Krishna allow you to make up your own god. Religions like Buddhism are more discreet about it and profess to be about 'enlightenment' and entering 'Nirvana' by disconnecting from the real world and losing all passion, but in the end it is all the same thing. The process for making up your own God is fairly simple: you make yourself a statue of some sort, or if you aren't artistically inclined you buy one. You then imagine that, somehow, this statue becomes inhabited by some supernatural spirit, and then you imbue that spirit with powers and characteristics of your own choosing. And then you bow down and worship it! In cultures where idols are frowned upon, you can be more subtle about the process and do away with the statue. Many of these religions have a built-in career path, whereby you can, provided you do enough of the right things and make the right sacrifices, eventually become a god yourself.
I really can't see any purpose in worshipping something you know is fake, because you made it up yourself. All that is proof of is that man has a deep-seated need to worship something. To worship the TRUE God, you must find Him in scriptures, NOT in your imagination.
CHANGING GOD BY MAKING UP DOCTRINES
There are three major religions which specifically forbid the making up of your own god. Judaism, and the two major religions which have their roots in Judaism: Islam and Christianity. But let me preface that by saying there is another, more subtle way of making up your own god: and that is by making up your own doctrines. Just because the religion forbids making up your own god, doesn't mean Man isn't going to. Imagine for a moment you have a real liking for dancing on table tops. So you think to yourself, 'Hey wouldn't it be good if the whole congregation could dance on table tops every Sunday morning?' So you look up every scripture you can find that mentions dancing and every scripture about table tops. You mix them all together, take out any bits that don't fit, and 'Presto!' - you have a new doctrine. You haven't made up an entirely new god, but you have modified him to be a god more to your own liking. You now have a god who likes his people to dance on table tops.
JUDAISM
So let's look at Judaism first. When Israel was enslaved to Egypt, they escaped the clutches of Pharaoh in the most miraculous circumstances imaginable. There were the plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, sandals that didn’t wear out, water from a dry rock in the desert, and food floating down from the heavens on a daily basis. Moses, their leader, went up a mountain to meet with the very God who had set them free. When he hadn't returned after three or four weeks, they gathered all the gold they could lay their hands on, their rings and bracelets and cups and what have you, and they melted it all down to make a golden calf! And then they worshipped it! And I think: 'What was WRONG with these people??' The Jews' God is Yahweh, their bible is basically our Old Testament, and their prophet the 'Messiah' or Deliverer. So wrong were their expectations of their Messiah, that they didn't recognise Him when He came. And so they killed Him. And to this day they are still waiting for their Messiah to turn up. The Old Testament has dozens upon dozens of prophecies about the coming of the Messiah and what He would be like, ALL of which were fulfilled in Jesus. I can tell you now, if Jesus wasn't the Messiah, then He isn't coming.
ISLAM
So let's look at Islam, or the Muslim faith. Hundreds of years before Israel escaped from Egypt, Abraham was living in the desert with his wife, Sarah, and her handmaiden, Hagar. Then God made a promise to Abraham that he would become the father of many nations. Sarah was barren. Now, as was common practice in those days, Sarah gave her husband her handmaiden to have children with. So Hagar had a son called Ishmael. But then, miraculously, Sarah, well beyond child-bearing age, also had a son and they called him Isaac. Anyway, jealousy sprung up between the two women, growing into a level of friction that made it impossible for them to remain in the same household. So Abraham sent Hagar and Ishmael into the desert, where they should have died. But God saved them and Hagar became the mother of all the Arab tribes. Sarah, on the other hand, became the mother of the twelve tribes of Israel. The friction between the two women continues until this day, manifested as hatred between the Arabs and the Israelis.
The god of Islam is Allah. Their bible is the Koran plus the Hadiths (sayings attributed to their prophet Mohammed). We should note here that whilst Bible transcriptions and translations had thousands of eyes and minds making sure of their accuracy, no such control has ever been exercised over the Koran. In addition, of some 600,000 original Hadiths, more than 597,000 have in due course been rejected as false.
Now Mohammed was actually an entrepreneurial poet who tried to bring in unity and free trade amongst the warring tribes of the Arab world. The Koran specifically offers heavenly rewards for the killing of Jews and infidels, (which is interpreted to mean Christians, with good reason mind you, but I'll come to that later). It is interesting to note that Mohammed himself was an advocate for women's rights, so the oppression of women is not actually fundamental to the Muslim faith, even though it is the fundamentalists who practise that doctrine the most ardently. It is another example of making up your own god, because the nature of the god you worship is expressed in the doctrines you practise. The 'outreach' policy of Islam is not evangelism, to make more converts. It is a policy of 'conquer and destroy'.
So, you ask, 'Why not Islam?' All I can say is, that I didn't meet my God by hijacking an aeroplane and flying it into a building. Or by tying explosives to my waist and setting them off in a crowd of strangers.
There are of course many genuine peace-loving Muslims - but again, it is a man-modified version of Allah they worship. The Allah described in the Koran has no sympathy for either Jews or Christians. It’s why extremist Muslims find it so easy to justify their violence.
CHRISTIANITY
So that leaves Christianity. And you're probably thinking I'm going to be full of praise for it. But on the contrary, of all the people who make up their own god, we are probably the worst offenders. Starting with the early church in England, a thousand years after the fact, we sent crusaders to go and kill those who had 'killed' Jesus. This was totally against anything Jesus taught. And while we were about it, it seemed expedient to wipe out some of the other ‘pagans’ we came across - particularly the Muslims. This explains much of the hatred they have for infidels. After that, we used the Lord's name to justify slavery, war, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, witch hunts and bigotry of all descriptions. We've ended up with a religion so divided into denominations and sects that it would be laughable, if it wasn't so serious. Anytime we are not satisfied, we start another group and make up some new doctrines to go with it. The latest is the 'Prosperity Doctrine'. And as I said before, making up doctrines, is the equivalent of making up your own god. It is just a more subtle way of going about it.
Christianity's God is the same one the Jews worship. He has many names, including Yahweh, Adonay (or Adonai), and Jesus. Our Bible includes the New Testament, penned by the earliest followers of Jesus. We believe Jesus is the Messiah. His message was very simple: He died and rose again so that we might have the opportunity to come back into right fellowship with God, an entitlement we lost when Adam and Eve sinned. And He is the only way back to God. If there was another way to go to heaven, His sacrifice would have been for nothing.
If there is a God, and if there is a heaven to go to, just imagine for a minute the absurdity of fronting God in a few decades from now and telling Him that you should be allowed in, because you earned the right by being a good person. Or because you imagined Him to be different from what He really is.
FINDING GOD ON HIS TERMS
When I found Him, I made a vow never to try to change Him, even those parts of Him I didn't understand. I was only interested in those parts of Christianity that were real. A real God. A real relationship with a living being. A real change in the way I live and the way I see others. There is no need to make excuses for Him, for the parts beyond our comprehension. God is God. We are fortunate indeed that He is a righteous God. That He is a loving God, who has our best interests at heart. He could have been a nasty piece of work, a supernatural being whose mischievous nature plays mind games. Instead, He is a wonderful Spirit, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing and infinitely good.
SUMMARY
So why Christianity? Because I did meet my God by reading the New Testament. I did meet my God by believing the promises made therein. And I did meet my God by repenting from my sinfulness and inviting Jesus to come into my heart and asking Him to be Lord of my life.
If you can't get into heaven by making up your own god. And you can't get into heaven by waiting for a Messiah who's already come. And you can't get into heaven by strapping explosives to your waist. That only leaves one choice: the one and only real God of Christianity, who doesn't want 10% of your time or 10% of your money, but wants 100% of your heart. I don't believe in rushing people to make a hasty decision they later regret. When you are ready to make a 100% commitment to Jesus, He is ready to make a 100% commitment to you.
CONCLUSION
Man has a place deep inside his being that can only be filled with God. We try filling it with all sorts of junk, including addictions, entertainment, love of money and other man-made gods. None of them satisfy for any length of time. That space within was designed by God to fit God, and no one else and nothing else will do.
I will be even more specific. The God-shaped vacuum inside each and every human being is designed by Yahweh to fit Yahweh. He has done His bit to close the gap between us. He created us to be one with Him. He humbled Himself to become one of us. He died on a cross to make that possible. Now He is waiting for us to do our bit.
You are welcome to E-mail me and I will be happy to pray for you.