June 23rd – Can Your God Save You?

Angry gods are hard to please. Baal demanded self-mutilation. Molech demanded child-sacrifice. Hari Krishna demanded personal deprivation of luxuries and gross suffering. Muhammad demanded his followers pay alms, make a pilgrimage to Mecca, pray to him five times a day, or die in a holy war. If the forgiveness of sins and salvation could be earned, granting you favor with deity, how would you set out to do it?

If all roads led to God, I’d choose the easiest. The problem is these roads have all been paved by men. God’s own sacrificial law for the Jewish people was unable to help them meet their deepest need and His full requirement—perfection. How then can we think man’s different religious systems, rites and rituals can save us?

God has spoken: there is only one way to reach Him—Jesus Christ, His Son. The wonderful thing about Christianity is, while other religions involve man’s attempt to reach God, Christianity is God reaching man. God doesn’t need our effort. He only needs our faith in His Son’s finished work.

Maybe you’ve experimented with different religions, but haven’t been satisfied with “religion’s limiting show,” as one journalist stated. Put your faith in the one God Who wants to save you.

It may be said with some certainty that no religion or religious philosophy is any better than its conception of God. —Mark Albrecht

Devotional by Pastor Jim Scudder, Jr.