“I hereby certify that Honorable ‘divine being of bliss’, resident of heaven, is the true and only God and the owner of the entire creation.”
Signatory:
Editor ‘Sampark’
Does God ever need such a certificate of authentication? If I deny His existence, will it in any way impinge on His existence? Try to understand this with and example: Can a destitute orphan child who has never seen or known about his parents, claim that nobody gave him birth, he just happened? But there are numerous silly people on this earth who claim that nobody created this universe, it just ‘happened’. God’s Word calls them ‘fools’ – Psalm 53:1.
Because I do nor believe in religion does not mean that I am an atheist. To believe in the existence of God, does one have to believe in a religion as well? God loves persons, not religion; He loves every person. For God, human beings are what matter not their religion. Our religions have alienated us from each other. Religion has become a burden on humanity, not allowing it to flourish. The reasoning power of mankind has become so tied down with the chains of religion that people fail to rise above their religions and rationalize. Suppose that two religions exist and proponents of both teach that only our religion is good and true, the other is false and bad; they teach arrogance, jealousy, vengeance towards the other religion, then how is one different from the other? Maybe they differ in their name, in their rituals and practices, but factually, at their core, they are just the same. Religion compels us to believe in and serve a dogma.
Religion merely provides a covering not character. One may follow any religion, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu or any other, but the person’s behavior and character remains more or less the same. They all do the same things e.g. lying, deceiving, greed, jealousy, antagonism, beating wives, harboring bad feelings etc. The deeds remain the same, only the names of their religions differ.
Our religions have become very cruel. They lack mercy, love, tolerance, humility in them. Instead, they are now full of hatred, vengeance, arrogance – that we are superior the others are inferior and contemptible. Followers of other religions are now regarded as enemies, not humans. He who does not believe in my religion cannot be religious. How narrow-minded is the belief that makes me treat followers of all other religions except mine as infidels. Man is not good or bad by the religion he follows, but by what he does.
We have wrecked havoc on the earth that we live upon. We are now on the verge of our destruction. There is no way out, ethics and earth are ready to perish. Vain arguments will be of no consequence and logic will prove to be futile for solutions. Yet we persist in a delusion, believing that we will never have to face the inevitable. Eventually we will have to face the bitter truth. The wickedness of this world has reached the limits of God’s forbearance.
If a rickshaw puller does not take bribes is it to be considered an act of honesty? This is merely his compulsion, since his work does not give him the opportunity to take a bribe. Similarly many are honest because of compulsions, since they have not got a chance to be dishonest. Can such people be considered honest? It is said that the rich exploit the poor. But the truth is far from this assertion. Just consider that if a stranger comes to a town does the rickshaw puller not charge twenty five instead of five? He does not miss a chance to extract the maximum he can. Similarly, rich or poor, given the chance will make the most of it and derive maximum benefit that he can in that situation.
This body of flesh will be mischievous, openly or surreptitiously. Whoever you may be, however you may appear from the outside, what matters is how you are on the inside? Wantonness is considered evil by everybody, but opportunity permitting, nobody misses out on deriving pleasure from it, overtly or covertly. When conscience departs, man comes to his most dangerous state. Today man is not troubled by his conscience therefore he has become so ghastly that he is the least bothered about killing his own children. Parents deliberately and willingly pay contract money to the doctors to have their unborn daughters killed within the womb, with not a shred of concern or conscience.
A father, on his death bed, wanted to share his life’s lesson with his son. He said to him, “Son I have learnt that you cannot buy happiness with money.” The son said, “Father, I also want to share something with you, there may or may not be another opportunity. What you are saying is correct. It is true that one cannot buy happiness with money, but having wealth one can atleast acquire the sorrows of his choice. Whether one lives in a hut or in a palace, sorrow and troubles are everywhere. So if one anyway has to suffer troubles, might as well suffer in a palace.” The father had no answer to his son’s contention. Silently he just kept looking at his son, wondering about his conduct, behavior and future.
There is difference in the thinking of the father and the son. The son does not agree with his father. There is discord in the family, just on seeing her husband’s face the wife starts loosing her cool. There may be everything in the house but peace and joy. There is a distance in the relationship of parents & children, husband & wife. Staying in the home has become oppressive. Relationships are no longer what they used to be. Fraternal feeling is turning cold; maintaining relationships has become farcical, now relationships are there just for name’s sake. These contrived associations have caused us to loose our peace, integrity, many friends and relations.
Adulterated and spurious goods valued at about 30,000 crores are said to be in the markets of our country. This is an age of bogus things, love is served with selfishness, and truth is mixed with falsity. Air, water, religion, everything is contaminated. Being humane has lost out to being rich.
Man has become so vain now-a-days that he boasts in even the evil he does, as if it were a good thing. Sample these commonly used expressions of boasting and try to think through the mentality they represent: “see how easily I fooled him”, “how slyly I conned him”, “there is none whom I haven’t used for selfish gain”. What do these sentences convey to you?
Man’s temperament has undergone a radical change. Today, he is governed only by selfish desires. He does not want to think beyond himself and his own. In this changing world, man too has changed and changed so much that it is difficult to consider him humane.
A deficiency in life now keeps pricking; despite all efforts, there is always a feeling that somehow there is something that could not be acquired. Having gained money, status and all that the world could offer, if happiness in life still eludes then of what value is the gain? Contentment and peace are nowhere to be seen. How does one surmount this?
If food has everything but salt,
It is worthless.
If life has everything but peace
It is worthless.
If home has everything but happiness
It is worthless.
If having read all this, there is no change in life
It is worthless.
Death has no ‘off days’. Every hour 1112, and every minute 18 persons are dying. If it is somebody’s turn today, it may be mine tomorrow and may be yours the day after tomorrow. Time does not standstill. The final destination of this body is the graveyard, nobody can take it beyond. Some ‘smart’ persons sardonically smile on hearing of life after death, as if something very foolish has been said. But the fact remains that there is a life after this life and a death after the death in this world. Your body will not go with you beyond this world, but all your sins surely will. Those very sins that have taken away your peace in this world will continue to torment you in the next world too.
Through sin is curse, not just upon man but upon the whole creation. The world is suffering the consequences of sin’s curse. It is sin that has wrecked havoc on man and made life hell, in this world as well as the next. No matter what religion you may follow, if sin is in your life, then its curse too is in your life. The consequences of your sin will not leave you even the next world.
Heaven does not have to be kept up in the firmament; it should be in our hearts. Heaven can come into your life, into your family. If you are living with sin you are living with hell. I am not talking of going into hell, for we start suffering in hell in this life itself. If you are living with your sins forgiven, you are living with heaven. Our sins ruin all our blessings, compelling us to live an arid and barren life.
Many of you who are reading these words would be those who have been defeated by self and circumstances. Many may have made futile attempts to improve themselves and their circumstances, and would now be left wondering what else is left to do? If you are worn-out by your deeds, by your own self, your habits, anger, smoking-drinking, family feuds, ailments of the body or mind and don’t know where to go and what to do, then believe me this message is for you. There is a solution for your problems and your discord.
This may be the last opportunity and the last message for you. While you have breath, you have hope, but no one knows when the last breath will be taken and life will be over. Maybe you have lost much – time, opportunities and blessings. Why and for what do you want to put off your decision now? It makes no difference what religion you profess to follow, or what is the count and severity of your sins. Lord Jesus has the ability to forgive all.
Man can leave everything, even this body will eventually be left, but sin and its curse no man can leave. Only the Lord Jesus can deliver you from sin and its sting. He has done all that was required for you to be delivered of your sin and its curse. Now you do not need to go anywhere or do anything for this. All that is required is to ask forgiveness of sins. From a true heart just pray a simple prayer “Lord Jesus have mercy on me – a sinner, and forgive my sins”.
Nietzsche was a famous philosopher and an atheist. He propounded an opinion that if anyone shows mercy or forgiveness towards another he is loosing his supremacy. In other words, if ‘justice’ were to show mercy, it will loose its capability of meting out justice. There came a time in his life when this philosopher became insane. The year Nietzsche died, Adolf Hitler was born. He too accepted the same philosophy. He despised others and insulted them. The weak, dependent, invalid, destitute and helpless he considered a burden on the nation. He wanted to eliminate this burden, and so he put into practice many schemes for this. Today Hitler is dead but his views persist. He believed that you need a staff to raise a flag. Similarly there are many today who, to keep their flags over their wives and children, use a staff.
But in Lord Jesus this is absolutely the other way round – mercy is essential to keep from punishment. There is only one way to escape from the penalty of sin – the way of mercy and forgiveness. Jesus made a way in which He emptied himself to save others. He gave His life for men, not for a religion. In His mercy, punishment is changed through forgiveness, and blessings take the place of curse. By giving His life on the cross He changed the chastisement of our sins into forgiveness. There is no need to ‘convert’ to the Christian religion to obtain this forgiveness. The Christian religion is a dogma not the absolute. The absolute is God. We are unable to love those who have hurt us, but Jesus loved even those who were not worthy of love.
The Jews considered Jesus to be against their religion, they felt that He is ruining their religion. But Jesus did not oppose their religion; He only opposed their hypocrisy, envying, hatred, vengeance and misleading people in the name of religion to serve their own ends. Jesus Himself was not a ‘christian’ and neither did he ever use this word. For 300 years after Him, there was nothing going by the name of ‘christian religion’. Jesus did not propound the ‘christian religion’, He taught the Way of Truth.
I want to pull you out of your reverie so that you can think correctly about yourself and take the right decision.
A young man aged 23 years, disgusted and beaten by his life desired death since he had no hopes left in life. Alone, in a room on the rooftop, on a hot night in May 1969, he fell on his knees. In a few minutes he came out absolutely transformed. How and what caused this miraculous transformation? A simple small prayer; yes, one sincere prayer coming from the depths of his heart – “O! Lord Jesus have mercy on me a sinner” that changed his whole life.
That young man of 23 is now an elderly man of 63 years and is writing these words for you. I am unable to pen my black deeds, such reprehensible deeds that society does not permit them to be written and I do not have the courage to write them either. At that time even I was unable to forgive myself, but my Lord within moments not only forgave all my sins but totally transformed me.
The same God is talking to you through these words. He can, and is willing to do the same for you too.
Why not call out to Him today – “O! Lord forgive me a sinner.”
