In looking at these major belief systems and their views of God, we find tremendous diversity:
Hindus acknowledge multitudes of gods and goddesses.
Buddhists say there is no deity.
New Age Spirituality followers believe they are God.
Muslims believe in a powerful but unknowable God.
Christians believe a loving God who created us to know him.
What does each religion require?
The world’s major religions (Hinduism, New Age Spirituality, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity) are also quite unique in their requirements.
Most of the world religions place an individual on their own, striving for spiritual perfection.
In Hinduism a person is on their own trying to gain release from karma.
In New Age a person is working at their own divinity.
In Buddhism it is an individual quest at being free from desire.
And in Islam, the individual follows religious laws for the sake of paradise after death.
With Jesus Christ, you see God offering us a relationship with himself, not based on our efforts, but based on what he did for us.
All religions are working on the same problem.
We’re all aware of personal failings and the need to be better. This is what leads to the creation of religions. We also want to feel at peace. And so we move to practices like meditation, religious rituals, fasting, prayer, sacrifice, pilgrimages, etc.
However, when it comes to connecting with God who is there and created us, our problem is not lack of personal effort. Our problem is our sin.
God tells us that our sin stands as a barrier between us and him. We sense that separation, and distance. That’s what leads to religious practices.
God acknowledges this separation between us and him and provided a solution to it. He said the payment for sin is death…eternal spiritual separation from him. Yet out of love for us, Jesus Christ, God himself, came in human form to pay for our sin for us.
In Jesus Christ, God reached toward humanity.