First, I want to get one thing off
my chest, I believe that Christianity is the only way to God. Therefore I
believe in absolute truth. But there is one thing I cannot stomach about this
phrase. Too often do people believe in absolute truth, and degrade other
religions by following what they think to be their way. I am not saying the
other religions are right, but I do believe that most religions have ounces of
truth in each of them, or at least a common goal behind them.
Almost all
religions agree that something has gone wrong in humanity, that there is
suffering, and that there is some sort of hope. Therefore there is something
driving everyone to believe in something, whether it is Islam, Buddhism, or you
name it. But I only believe that there is one religion, one way that holds the
full truth, the absolute truth, in their teachings and beliefs. That is
Christianity. Not the fanatical and stereotypical “I hate everyone who is not
Christian” type of Christianity, but the kind that the Bible portrays, and the
type that Jesus lived.
Now I do
not believe that Christians have it all together, and that we are all perfect.
No, that is not even close. Because the truth is, and the Bible recognizes
this, is that we are all sinners. Not one is perfect. And we Christians,
despite all our aspirations, come not even close. But only to God are we made
perfect through the blood of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. I do not want to
stray away though, from the fact that Christianity does indeed offer answers to
the questions that so haunt our daily lives. “Why am I here? What purpose do I
serve? What is the meaning of life?” The answer that God offers though is not
well received well by the world because the world cannot know it. Darkness
cannot know light. The answer is that we are here to serve God and to give Him
praise because he created us. Now one might argue that God may be a tad bit
selfish for creating us to please him. To which my answer would be, “If you
made a meal with beef, you would not want the beef to sit up and say “I think
it’s very selfish of you that you made this entire meal and wanted it all for
yourself. Why don’t I have the right to not be eaten?” The point is that that
beef was made for a purpose, to be eaten and to satisfy your hunger. So as
humans, our purpose is to please God and serve Him because that is why we were
created.
My next
point is that Christianity does indeed offer the answers to how we got on this
Earth, all without requiring as much faith as Darwinism or the big bang theory.
You would expect me to believe that the started with a huge
explosion and somehow, for we do not how, there was matter that just appeared
and created the earth and the stars and the universe, and that once the
particles matured enough, they developed into some sort of monkeys that turned
into humans? I thought I was crazy until I heard that myth. I wonder, if the
scientist that created that myth, ever thought about how complex and
intelligently this world was created with all of the humans, animals, food
chains and natural beauty before they said that it started with a few
particles. I don’t know about anyone reading this, but I have never seen two
dust particles or something just come up and make some sort of living being.
Christianity offers up the truth that this world was thought up by a God who is
and who always was. That is the only explanation for how we came to be so
complex, and different…yet so intriguingly similar.
Have you
ever noticed that most people all have similar things driving us? We all desire
to be loved. We all have a moral code so that we know what is right and wrong.
We all worship something, whether it is some sort of god or material possession
or even ourselves. I could go on about what we all have in common. The
direction I am going with this, is that how could we all be so similar without
having the same God creating us?
And have you ever noticed how the things that make who we
are, are never truly our own. Our thoughts are usually driven by society, our
art is inspired by nature and our lives our shaped by what others tell us to do
and not do. You see? Nothing is ever truly original, nothing that we say, do,
wear, or think is truly our own. We as humans are impacted by outside things like
nature, media, and especially other people. This leads me to my conclusion. We
are in this thing together. You don’t change the world by yourself. An
individual trying to change the world will only be another sound until someone
takes time to hear them. All the time, we reflect back into history and look at
Gandhi or Martin Luther King Junior, and even though they are individuals, the
only reason they made any sort of impact was because they have a following who
reveres them.
Back to
absolute truth. Absolute truth is something that is consistently looked down
upon in the world, because it is responded to by “stop being so closed minded”
or other similar things. But the ironic thing is that the more open minded you
are, the more you lose track of who you are and what makes an individual
independent. But if you believe in absolute truth, it is much easier to know
who you are and what you believe in because you are grounded in something.
I want to
mention again how absolute truth is not all that it seems.
Just because a person believes in absolute truth, it does not mean that he
should look down upon other religions just because they know that their
religion is the only way. Instead, that person should approach the other understanding
that their motives are the same, but only the other has been misled by the
schemes of the devil.
What I have
come to realize is that this world has been defiled by sin, but there is hope.
Hope in the cross. Hope in the Christ. Hope in the church. There is always
hope.
