Daily Devotionals

Devotional: November 13th

For Reading and Meditation:
     John 19:28-37

The chief difference between other religions and the Christian faith as it relates to the matter of personal salvation is: every other religion teaches a form of self-salvation; Christianity teaches that God came in the Person of His Son to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. One Christian writer, Emil Brunner, refers to "the self-confident optimism of all non-Christian religions, because they teach a gospel of self-salvation, whereas in the Good News the whole emphasis is on the gracious 'self-movement' of God towards sinners and on self-despair as the antechamber of faith." Buddhism sees the main problem in life as suffering rather than sin, and the "desire" which is at the root of suffering. Deliverance comes, claims Buddhism, through the abolition of desire by self-effort. There is no God and no Savior. The very last words of the Buddha to his disciples were these: "Strive without ceasing." How different from the last words of our Lord from the cross, which included the wondrous cry: "It is finished." Hinduism teaches the main problem in life is maya or karma, maya being illusion and karma retribution through reincarnation. Each person, says Hinduism, must receive the fruit of his or her own wrongdoing in future lives, if not in this one. From this endless cycle of rebirths or reincarnations there is no escape by forgiveness but only the final release of nirvana, involving the extinction of being. If only people of the world would heed the text at the top of this page. What a difference it would make to them. Salvation has been accomplished. It is ours to receive.

O God, I am thankful that I am no longer caught up in precariously trying to save myself. Instead I rest assured in the salvation You have purchased for me on Calvary. Grant that millions more might enter into it by faith this very day. In Christ's Name I pray. Amen.

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