DAILY DEVOTIONAL – October 30, 2020
“Divergent Dogma”
Prayer: Righteous Father, we know that if you were to treat us as we deserve and repay us fairly for our good works, not one of us would be left standing. We are all guilty and deserving of Your punishment. Our only hope of deliverance and salvation is in Your promised mercies and forgiveness given to us freely by grace through faith in Your Son Jesus, who bore the full weight and severity of Your judgement against our sin. Trusting in Him alone, God we praise You and thank You for the hope You have given us both now and for eternity. Amen.
Scripture: Psalm 130
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
2 O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleas for mercy!
3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.
5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
6 my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.
7 O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.
8 And he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.
Devotional – “Divergent Dogma”
Not too long ago I was talking with a young person in my office. We were having a discussion about religion and spirituality and as is stated and believed by so many today, this young adult told me, “All religions are essentially the same…they pretty much all lead to God. I personally believe that karma is real,” they said confidently.
Are all religions the same? Well, yes and no really. Most all religions seek to find or “get in touch with” the spiritual realm in one form or another, and a good number of them believe that the spiritual realm is ruled by one or more gods. For all of the superficial commonality that appears to exist between the religions of the world, there is one fundamental and polarizing difference that absolutely shatters any belief that all religions are the same. That one difference lies not in what you believe, but in who you believe. In other words, the religions of the world can be divided into two distinctly different categories, between which exists an impassible chasm. That chasm is the void of human ability. The religions of the world can be clearly divided into those that believe and put their faith in man’s ability to deliver himself, and those that believe and put their faith in God’s merciful deliverance of mankind.
All but one of the world religions are united in their belief in man’s ability to search out, find and take hold of God. In stark contrast to all other belief systems, Christianity is the single religion that believes mankind’s only hope to knowing God and receiving salvation depends solely on God searching us out, revealing Himself to us, and providing the way to salvation; a way that is no way reliant on our inability to be holy enough or spiritual enough to achieve deliverance from the sin and death that keep us captive.
A purely objective study will show that Judaism, Islamism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Pantheism, Humanism, Naturalism, even atheism and agnosticism, all believe that the substance of spirituality and salvation lies is man’s religiosity and his ability to transcend this world and pave his own path to God. Christianity stands far removed from the anthropocentric religiosity of world religions and proclaims that man can in no way merit or achieve salvation but is instead utterly and completely reliant on the love and mercy of God to bring us back to Himself. The Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the single message of Christianity is that God has in fact done just that. By revealing Himself in Jesus, who is the One and only Song of God, and by satisfying God’s judgement against the sin of mankind by dying on the cross and rising from the dead, God has done what we could never do for ourselves; He has brought the Kingdom of God to us and made a way for us to receive hope and salvation through faith in what Christ has done for us.
While all other religions believe man has to do something in order to appease God and be saved, Christianity proclaims we have been corrupted through and through by our sin and are left at the mercy of God’s love and His work of salvation on our behalf in Jesus Christ.
Christianity proclaims the unbalanced beauty of God’s grace and unmerited forgiveness in Jesus Christ.
As our text form Psalm 130 says:
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
2 O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleas for mercy!
3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
4 But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.
Well thanks for spending some time with me today in God’s Word, and remember, that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
