similarities from other religions

I believe that Christians have a tendency to view other religions as opposed to Christianity. This is completely true. In Matthew 12:30 Jesus said "Whoever is not with me is against me." However, this is not to say that we should shun and ignore the content of other religions. For Ecclesiastes 3:11 "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end." Whether or not men accept Christ as the one who rose from the dead, they seek after the relationship, the security, and the hope that the gospel brings, and this manifests itself in the content of other religions. God has imprinted his image on the bodies, minds, and spirits of all men and they reflect this by coming up with false religions that resemble Christianity in some respects. This post is a discussion of some of those points. I take time to describe them because they are useful. Because you can use them to start conversations and relate to people from other religions.

1) Hinduism
Hinduism has been around forever and primarily resides in India. For the common people, it is a worship of a handful of the many local and three main gods Shiva, . There are over 300 million total gods in Hinduism, most of them being local to specific villages or cities with a few being more generally worshiped. This area has little to do with Christianity as I have seen so far.

However, the less practiced ultimate goal of all Hindus piques my interest. All of the 300 million gods, as well as every person, animal, and physical object are manifestations of the single 'god' Brahma. He is not properly a god as monotheists think, but rather more of a semi-sentient force in the universe. The goal of Hindus is to realize they they are only pieces of God, 'atman' as they call it. Once they realize this (if they are of the Brahman class) they will attain 'maksha', be absorbed into Brahma, and cease to perceive the world, going into Nirvana.

Now the similarities is are these
a) First that God created the world and it is upheld by his power. (Hebrews 1:3) So all matter and laws of nature are a living extension of him, much like all most things are extensions of Brahma.
b) Second, the many gods of Hinduism are like the many names of God. Although most Hindus don't think of it, all their smaller gods are merely specific manifestations of Brahma. In the same way, God does many things and is called by many names - Jehovah Jireh the God who provides, Son of Man, Son of God, Jehovah Sabaoth the Lord of Hosts.
c) Third, to Hindus, people are specifically 'atman' pieces of God and their life goal is to be reunited with Brahma. Christians believe something similar, but on a more intense level. We are not just made in his image (Genesis 1:27), we are sons and daughters of God to inherit the kingdom as the siblings and bride of Christ. Additionally Christians life goal is more than uniting with God, it is a relationship with God, to be conformed into his image, to marry his son.
d) The bible reaches a level near blasphemy (but not) as it refers to how we are to imitate and become like God. We are to be transformed into the image of Jesus (2 Corinthians 3:18) and, speaking of the Old Testament judges and kings, Psalm 82:6, he calls them quote on quote "Gods" and quote "Sons of the most high." In this sense we are even more than atman, we are little Gods. Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but in the original sense of the term, 'Christians', or 'little Christs'.

2) Buddhism (Mahayana Buddhism, specifically)
Buddhism comes from Hinduism. Siddhartha Gautama was a rich Hindu guy cloistered from the pain of the common people. Then one day he went out and saw all the suffering, was shocked, and went on a quest to figure out how to end suffering. His conclusion was explained to me by a Mahayana Buddhist at a Zen Center. Suffering is caused by wanting something that doesn't happen (as opposed to pain which is simply physical). Therefore, we can eliminate suffering by wanting nothing. The goal of Buddhism is to realize that that the world is empty and to not desire it. To solve the terrible affliction of poverty and pain, the Buddha proposed to detach oneself from wanting to avoid them. (p.s. Buddhists are still big alms givers and have a large ministry to help the poor.)

Christianity is similar to this, but at in a more hopeful way. The world is not nothing on it's own, it is merely nothing in comparison to the one who made it. We can be independent of pain and free of suffering because we already have what we want most, and it cannot be taken away from us. God alone is our greatest treasure, and he already died in order to come live in our hearts.

3) Native American beliefs
The similarities of Native American philosophies are like the Hindu ones. There is a Great Spirit who is over everything and their smaller spirits live in most natural plants and animals and such. (I understand this is a huge generalization and different tribes vary vastly from each other). This is more in line with what I call Manifest theory - that the universe is largely a reflection of Gods characteristics. Romans 1:19b-20 "...since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." See also Psalm 19:1-4. God shows himself through nature, so it is not surprising that many worship nature instead of him. In much the same way some men worship their wives with unhealthy attachment or worship knowledge, a good gift given to us but not a substitute for the one who knows all, the Truth and the Word - Jesus.

4) Islam
Many people have already made extensive comparisons between Christianity and Islam and I claim to do nothing special here. Both are monotheistic, believing in one very strong and holy God who desires and requires (in different senses) strong devotion all people of earth. On the one hand the ties are so strong I'd rather not go into detail, on the other hand there are some fundamental differences that change everything. Many Muslims know a reasonable amount about Jesus and can discuss the Incarnation, the Law, the prophets, etc. I know little about their moral code except for the five pillars and that much is based off of Jesus' teaching (e.g. the golden rule).
Some differences which you may want to explore with a Muslim are these:
() How personal/relational is Allah? Is he a person? Do you have a need for relationship?
() What must you do in Islam to get to heaven? How sure are you? My Muslim friends tell me that they are trying to live as good a life as possible, and they think they will...probably get to heaven (Jannah) but they can't be certain. It depends on the will of Allah. From this I guess it might be good to ask whether Allah wants him/her to go to Jannah.
() Also in this regard, some Christians (I among them) claim that Islam and pretty much every other religion features man trying to reach God, while Christianity features God coming down to us (the incarnation of Jesus). I'll warn you though, the topic of the incarnation seemed quite silly to the Muslims I discussed it with and you might end up in a semi-awkward conversation.

So yes, God has set eternity in the heart of man. Man needs God. I pray that every person lets Him come in.

being like Christ - sacrifice and incarnation

As some of you may know, I recently took a month-long missions trip to Europe. This is the first post since then. I apologize sincerely for not updating you on this, for many strong ideas came to me in the process.

One that came to me early on was a deeper understanding of sacrifice and incarnation. I traveled with three other team members, all of whom deal far more with the personal/relational aspect of the world and think using feelings. If you are not familiar with the Meyers Briggs personality test, suffice it to say that one of the things it measures is thinking versus feelings. Feelers deal with, value, and make decisions based on humans. Thinkers are more material, logical, cold, linear. I'm an 88% thinker. This means that 15/16ths of me has nothing to do with the human world. You can understand, as a result it was hard to relate to or minister to three people who primarily care about relationships. It was also difficult to appreciate their struggles, decisions, or values. I could have sat distant from them, letting them do their own thing. But by the grace of God and by things he had been showing me for the past several weeks, it occurred to me that Christ was in much the same position. See, God is not at all like us humans. He doesn't have to concern himself with our affairs. He would be quite just in ignoring us. But he didn't do that, he took on flesh and came down to our level, sacrificing his time, energy, identity, and life for us. He became something he wasn't and concerned himself with things not of his nature - lies, confusion, temptation, and imperfection.

In the same way, I had to learn to operate in something I wasn't - more of a feeling mode. I had to intentionally step into the world of my teammates in order to understand, appreciate, and help them. Just as Jesus was man since the beginning of the world, so I have always had at least a small capacity to feel, however, it's a dimension of myself that I do not exercise frequently. Jesus is slightly different, for he is totally God and totally man always at the same time, but the application is pretty solid.
So yeah. Really sacrifice and live for and in other people.

Philippians 2:5-8
"5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature[a] God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!"