INTRODUCTION
This week I read an article in National Geographic about the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert in Africa.
Christian missionaries first went to Africa 200 years ago. One of the groups they sought to "convert" there were these bushmen of the Kalahari desert. However, this article pointed out that the bushmen of the Denui village in particular, consistently refused to become Christians. Instead they have maintained their traditional animistic religion. The reporter described what he saw …
“At night in the village there is often dancing around the fire, and sometimes this develops into a trance dance, one of the principal elements of Bushman spirituality. As the women and children sit around the fire clapping, the men shuffle around the blaze, pounding their feet into the dust, their flanks trembling under leather chaps. Little by little the rhythm of the clapping and the wordless chanting picks up. The ceremony, called the giraffe dance, is led by an old man, the resident shaman, who wears an ostrich plume in his beaded headband. As he circles the fire, he eventually falls into a trance. Within this altered state of consciousness, the Bushmen believe, they can cure the sick and communicate with dead or absent relatives.”
The village leader explained, "We are traditionalists here. We are not Christians. But we can talk to whoever the Christians talk to. It is all the same God; there are just different ways of talking to him."
(Source: National Geographic, Feb 2001; http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-5840731_ITM)
Is he right? Are all religions the same? If not, then how is Christianity different to other religions?
1. GOD PURSES YOU NOT VICE VERSA
"Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, `Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. "Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, `Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." (Luke 15:5-10)
The one thing that makes Christianity stand out from every other religion in the world is this – It’s God who seeks you not vice versa. All other religions are a search for God, but not Christianity. Our God is a God who pursues us. God could have required that we struggle all our lives to search for him; to hunt him down; to discover him – but he didn’t. God could have sent an angel to find us – his lost sheep – his lost coin – but he didn’t. Our God came to earth himself.
In that story about the lost sheep, God is the shepherd who leaves the 99 to find the one. In other words, the Divine Shepherd doesn’t leave you like a lost sheep abandoned, bleating and stumbling to find your way home. He put his own life on the line to search you out! In the story of the lost coin, God is like the woman who turns her whole house upside down to find one lost coin. That’s how incredibly valuable you are to God. God is turning his world upside down in order to find you! He doesn’t give up on you – you are his treasured possession.
The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession (Deuteronomy 7:6b NIV).
So Christianity is essentially a rescue mission.
“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10 NIV).
Friends, all other religions are based on the idea that you are on a quest to find life; a struggle to find Nirvana; a battle for enlightenment. But not the Christian faith. God wants you to stop struggling to find life – to simply stop running, to turn around towards him to simply take salvation from him as a free gift to you. Jesus said …
I have come that they might have life (1 John 10:10 NIV).
2. GOD ASSURED NOT SELF ASSURED
And understanding this principle can zoom you to a whole new level of living. It’s because God pursues you that you can be absolutely certain that you are saved and headed for heaven. Your salvation is not dependent on your struggle to pursue God by being good and holy. It is dependent on what Jesus did on the cross on your behalf.
The very last words that Buddha spoke to his disciples were these, “Strive without ceasing.” How different they are to the last words of Christ who said, “It is finished” (John 19:30 NIV). What makes Christianity unique is that Jesus completed the work for your salvation when he went to the cross. The writer of Hebrews said this about Jesus …
… he is able to save completely those who come to God through him (Hebrews 7:25 NIV).
If you have given your life to Christ the work is done; completed, and your eternal salvation is secure.
3. CONVERSION
We’re not just talking about “cleaning up our act” here. Some non-Christian religions use the word, “conversion” to describe a change in character; or a change in attitude; or a swap from one religion to another. But this kind of conversion is always on the horizontal level. “Cleaning up our act” is a change on the human/horizontal level. Changing our mind and moving sideways to another religion is a horizontal change. Neither of these have anything to do with a change in relation to God.
A change in our relationship to God is a vertical change. This is what Christian conversion is about.
Up to the age of 15 I thought if I was a good boy I would be saved and go to heaven. I wanted to be a Christian; I thought I was a Christian. But my “conversion” was all about my behaviour – it was a horizontal conversion. Then on the 19th March 1983, I sat in a friends lounge room and completely surrendered my whole life to Jesus Christ. I was vertically converted, and from that moment on my life was completely changed. And I can tell you this, the vertical change that happened between me and God that day was completely different to the horizontal conversion I had tried to live out before that.
CONCLUSION
On this matter of how we can be saved; Christianity is different to every other faith. Peter said,
Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved
(Acts 4:12 NIV)
And we all need a Saviour because we have all sinned and we can’t save ourselves from the consequences of our sin. None of the worlds other religions claim to have a Saviour. For example, the Buddhist view of Buddha is very different to the Christian’s view of Christ. Buddhists see the Buddha as a teacher, not a saviour. And likewise in Islam Muhammad is regarded as a prophet – not a saviour. In Islam, sinners will face judgement without forgiveness.
In complete contrast to that, Jesus is the one who brings salvation. He saves us from our guilt; he saves us from the addictive power of sin; and he saves us from the fear of the future because he saves us from the judgement we all deserve.
[Helpful Resources: “Searching Issues” (1994) By Nicky Gumbel]
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