For a long time, religious groups and many individuals have attempted to make religious peace amongst each other by ignoring the core tenets of what each person or group claims to believe. Our natural tendency is to be religious and to want the company of others. Some folks have gone so far as to make their religious foundation out of their blind willingness to have spiritual and religious fellowship with any other belief system, as long as they each feel good and don't hurt each another in worldly ways. Whose flesh doesn't want to feel good or find some way to try to guarantee personal or familial safety? Mine sure does!
However, God has clearly said throughout His Word that there is only one way to peace, and that that is through His Word (the Bible) and His plan of salvation through Jesus Christ. If we choose to ignore or disobey the Christ of God and the Word of God, then we shall have separated ourselves from the Truth from God. Remember that, even as Satan questioned God and His Word in the Garden of Eden, by our refusal, denial, or ignoring of the Truth of God, we leave ourselves on the side of evil, for though He made us, yet He waits for us to choose Him and His salvation, in place of our lust for sin.
In this vain, fearful, "Political Correctness" driven world, almost no one wants or dares to address the anti-God, anti-Christ ecumenical pressures that are striving to unite all world religions into an amalgam of people that bow increasingly to false gods in order to "get along", so that individuals and their families can go on their unholy self-interested ways, while continuing in their daily practices that deny, ignore, and reject God's Ways. Remember God's warning about our lust for "peace and safety".
Though He never used the word "ecumenicism" in the Scriptures, Jesus Christ, the Author and Finisher of God's only plan of salvation, the Lord of Love, Creator and Lord of All Creation, spoke often against the underlying tenets of ecumenicism, and one of His clearest statements is in,
Luke 12:51-53
51 Suppose
ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division:
52 For from henceforth there shall be
five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three.
53 The father shall be divided
against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the
daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her
daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
That statement by Christ Jesus leaves each of us with only one choice between the only two options that God allows, either we choose to stand with God according to His Truth or else we have chosen to stand against Him. Even saying that we refuse to make a choice IS a way of covering our eyes and ears and hardening our hearts and minds, as we choose to passively or actively oppose the LORD and His Ways.
Just like electing to flip or not flip a light switch, we must consciously, personally, and deliberately turn from our wicked ways, repent, and seek the LORD of lords while He may yet be found; while He still offers us His salvation. Choosing salvation is a personal choice that no one else can do for anyone, nor can any human being or organization do it for you at any age. I can't do it for you. Your parents or friends can't do it for you. No religion nor religious person can do it for you. Asking for and accepting God's salvation is a one-time deliberate personal decision to which God has called you or is calling you. By accepting and calling upon Jesus Christ you step, from being lost in spiritual darkness forever, into God's light of salvation in Christ Jesus; from walking deliberately or blindly with Satan, stepping into the holy life of learning to walk and grow in the salvation that God gives us in Jesus Christ, BUT none of us is saved from our sin UNTIL and only after we accept salvation on God's terms.
Only one Person and Power in all of Creation secured salvation for you and me: by His sinless life as God in human flesh, by His sufferings, blood, death, burial, and resurrection, Jesus Christ accomplished that for us because He loves us. It is now up to you, alone, to choose this precious gift that Jesus, alone, offers to you; His love gift to you. This one earthly life in this one human body is the only opportunity that you and I shall ever have to be born again of the Spirit of Christ, according to His Word (not according to man-made religion or philosophy). Remember that while Jesus walked among us and ministered to us those thousands of years ago, although people followed Him for His miracles and to get fed, in the end, they all rejected and abandoned Him. Even the apostles let Him down because of their sin nature, and so we learn how sinful even the most spiritually minded are among us.
Based on Christ's criticisms of the religious leaders of His day, and the fickleness of the people who followed Jesus, do not assume that a particular religion or group is 'for you', even if that religion/group appears harmonious, pretty, joyful, friendly, has lots of gatherings, buildings, programs, retreats, followers, or appears to love and welcome visitors or joiners. Things that beckon to our longings and weaknesses shall most likely NOT lead us to, but, instead, away from the sanctuary to which God would have us seek. None of those things, above, are the standards by which Jesus tested the religions of His day. Those things are NOT the standards by which the Word of God tells us to "judge righteous judgment" of all things, today, especially with regard to religion and spiritual life. Our judgment must begin with judging ourselves.
God shall hold each of us personally responsible for whether we have personally chosen to sift out the worldly lies from His Truth, in our lives and from what other people and religions present to us (regarding our need to choose salvation, as opposed to thinking that someone else might be able to take care of that for us). We must remember that whether we are young or old, healthy or sick, rich or poor, "God is no respecter of persons". Let us NOT deceive ourselves. For, if we do not choose Him and His salvation while we yet live here on Earth, then, once our bodies die there shall never be another time for the salvation of our spirit, in all eternity. For, "...it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment".
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