• Reincarnation and Deification

    If you are a low caste or no caste Hindu then you are stuck at that low level because that's what you deserve from your previous life. And people shouldn't reach out to help you, because they might jeopardize their own karma by interfering with you living out the miserable existence that you deserve. Simply said, people must accept their lot in life and not try to better themselves. This creates a really bad stigma, instead of realizing the reason there is pain and suffering is because of the sin of man, and we should strive to overcome it by the proper measures, first by being saved in Christ.

    Why do so many people want to make themselves God? Why do so many people gravitate towards this conclusion? There is lots of this going on in Christendom also, but of course they are not saved. Have they forgotten that we are God's creatures? Given a choice we tend to select beliefs that elevate who we are, that diminish personal responsibility, that gives us greater freedom to call 'good' what the Scriptures call 'sin', and that put ourselves in charge of our own destiny, rather than saying to God, as the psalmist did, 'My times are in your hands.' (Ps. 31.15) People have had great success in this world and they think of themselves as God. Others have had no success, but holding onto this idea they are a god, uplifts them. The question is who is doing the uplifting and is agreed to by God? What kind of God would we be so imperfect and flawed? Calling oneself God, or a little god, or God in nature and life, diminishes the need to give God His rightful place. We don't need to be more self-centered; we need to be God-centered. We can't find the real Jesus by thinking we are virtually His equal as Mormons believe.

    These days if someone says he believes in Jesus, you have to ask them, 'Which Jesus?'

    Our beliefs can't change reality that is set for forever. Whether we choose to believe it or not, Jesus is the unique Son of God. How do we know? Because he convincingly demonstrated the trustworthiness of his remarkable claims through his resurrection. He is who he is, regardless of what we think. So we have a choice: we can live in a fantasyland of our own making such as atheism or agnosticism and believing whatever we want about him, clinging to our pet teachings and grand assumptions about the historical Jesus; or we can seek to discover who he really is-and then bring ourselves into alignment with the real Jesus and his teachings.

    Amen.