One Faith: Putting All Our Eggs In One Basket

I trust that this is what we have found with Jesus, that he’s more than a basket to put one of our eggs in, but that he is the basket that we are to fully entrust ourselves to, trusting ourselves fully to Jesus and watching him like a hawk (excuse the idiom). But in our day and age so many of us struggle with this question . . .

What should we believe?

Our North American culture functions from a perspective of different baskets for different eggs. There are so many baskets, there can’t really be one, can there? For this egg Christianity works, but can’t Hinduism work for an egg of another kind? Or the Choose Your Own Adventure style of faith. I’ll weave my own basket of belief. There are many forms of belief, many baskets in our world that people entrust their lives too, is the one faith of Christianity any different? Yes it most definitely is.

Humanism – believes that God is non-existent and that our real problem is ignorance, salvation is found in education

Muslim – believes that God exists and that he is to be obeyed, but Islam teaches that salvation is attained by observance of the 7 pillars . . . and even then it’s a crap shoot, the Muslim is never assured of their salvation. It is not salvation by grace through faith, but as Paul cautions against it is a works oriented path to relationship with God.

Hinduism – Is a mish mash of belief that might be summed up as saying that “our present existence is actually an illusion. That there really isn’t a supreme being, however, there is a supreme or ultimate reality.” They believe in karma, that one gets what one deserves, which doesn’t sound too bad, until we all look at ourselves and make up our mind that none of us deserves much good. Because of karma, human beings are in a state of reincarnation, the only way to break such a state is by becoming one with ultimate reality by doing the right kind of yoga or meditation or by making sacrifices, or by living a good life.

The Christian faith is truly distinct. The different baskets of our world have different ideas of the afterlife, of sin, but they all really point to an earning or a working towards a goal. Christianity is markedly different. Not that we are not concerned with works, as James would say, faith without works is dead. But what you and I really trust in is Jesus Christ and his grace readily available to us.

There are so many who put their eggs in the baskets of the works oriented religions of our world, jumping through hoops to salvation, ultimate reality, or nirvana. But the real question, if there really is one faith as Paul says is, “Who is Jesus Christ?” This is they key question that we have to constantly bring people back to. Jesus Christ is our distinction. He is our distinctive. Muslims believe in Jesus, Hindu’s do to, Jews do not even deny his existence and neither do Jehovah Witnesses or Mormons, but at the end of the day, they all believe distinctly different things about Jesus from what the Scriptures tell us.

I don’t know about you . . . but I see few Muslims, and Hindus around us, and few people who really care about different baskets of belief or even wondering about what they should believe. When I walk through the Prairie mall, or sit down for breakfast at the Husky or the Blue Apple, I don’t observe many people asking themselves how they’re getting to heaven. I actually believe that we live in a bit of a spiritual vacuum in some ways. Fewer and fewer care about what to believe? Ed Stetzer is a church planter and the director for the Center For Missional Research, recently they polled people in the United States, and I don’t think the results would be any better in Canada, but they polled people in the states asking them this question . . . “How often do you wonder, if I were to die today would I know for sure that I’d go to heaven?” 20% daily, weekly and monthly were right around 10%, annually was just under 10% and just over 40% admitted they never even ask themselves the question. In our culture, I believe the biggest barrier to people gaining the one faith that Paul talks about is not about what they believe, they’re almost willing to believe anything . . . They’re not so much asking themselves the question, what should I believe, but they are living in such a way that shows that they have already answered the question . . . What should I trust?