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Who is God?

We live in an age where mankind is ruling the world. At first thought you would think that this seems like a good thing, but consider carefully those words. A more personal question I could ask is "Who is ruling your inner world or your soul?" If you believe in God, it doesn't guarantee that God has full control of your life, because it depends what religion you belong to. Many religions will disagree on their concept of God, if there is one God, then there are many ideas about God. I heard a priest say once that Catholics who are really Catholics are in danger of not being Catholic at all. This priest went on to say that religion just facilitated a relationship with God, so there is no need to really take this religion seriously. If this is the case, then all religions are just facilitators of the same God. In evangelicalism, we like to call this Universalism.

Universalism according to the internet is "the doctrine that emphasizes the universal fatherhood of God and the final salvation of all souls." At first blush, this seems like a fair doctrine because we live in an age where it is anathema to judge anyone. Somehow fairness has replaced the golden rule in the bible that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. In fact we love ourselves so much now, that this rule of Christianity is making true salvation a universal doctrine. The reason why this is a problem is because it makes salvation no longer a personal thing, where the individual has to repent and believe the gospel, but it is wrongly making it a collective thing where the collective or community must repent together for salvation! 

 Catholicism at it's heart is a universal religion, but it is not universal in it's salvation doctrine. It is universal in the sense that salvation is for everyone. But I mu-stent forget the bible here, if salvation is to be universal then all of the great doctrines of scripture come into conflict with the God who wrote them. There would be no born again Christians, no Catholics, no Lutherans, no Methodists, in fact if universalism were true God would cease to exist. By nature, it is the Holy Spirit who does the work of salvation in a persons heart. Regeneration (or the born again experience) happens mostly through the holy spirit. To say that everyone is born again, would imply there is no Hell right now, and that there is no one in Hell right now. In fact, universalism does away with the reality of Hell. 

 I believe it is one of Satan's tactics to get humanity to stop believing in Hell, and he does this through the doctrinal belief of Universalism. It also does away with the bible in the sense that it doesn't have to be taken seriously anymore, another one of the devil's tactics. If people chose to not take the bible seriously, then any religion can facilitate a relationship with God, and this makes the holy bible meaningless. I do believe that God can be found in various religions, but it is done in the context of holy scripture, namely the bible. I believe that if you are to find God, it cannot be done without the bible. 


 The bible is the foundation of my religion and if I was Hindu, I would use the bible to find God, in that case, I would stop being Hindu and would become a bible believing Christian. This is Mike.          

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