Not My Kind

 I’m still reading Moody on my Kindle Fire:

A lady came to me once and said, "Mr. Moody, I wish you would tell me how I can become a Christian .... But," she said, "I don't want to be one of your kind."  Moody, Dwight Lyman, Moody's Stories Incidents and Illustrations (Kindle Locations 1211-1212)

I heard a similar story from this weekend. A sister in Christ had a relative on her heart, and a family reunion during the holiday. A couple of days passed without a witnessing opportunity, until their last evening. Not only were they sitting together, but the conversation came easily, though he said something to the effect that while there was a god, all paths reached him so his was not her kind of God.

I heard a similar story a few years ago when witnessing to a gentleman whose grandmother and father died after lives avowing atheism. He said he could never be in a church whose God told him his father wasn’t in heaven. His god accepted everyone.

In each of these examples, the person involved stated an interest in religion, belief in a god, but not my kind.  You see, my beliefs are based on the Bible, which says:

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. (Deuteronomy 6:4-5 KJV)

That same God made plans for His children, set in motion from the beginning of time.

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:3-6 KJV)

Such a man came, and said:

I and my Father are one. (John 10:30 KJV)

And:

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (John 14:6 KJV)

Sadly some do not accept:

For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:17-18 KJV)

That’s the foundation of my kind of religion. The book begins with God creating our world, and ends with the beginning of our eternity with Him.

I’ll be happy to discuss why some religions find themselves not my kind.