1/4/15 Cristo about 30
What
do we say when people tell us that all religions are basically the same? This is what a man named Cristo at Home Depot
told me when I first reached out to him, dismissing the need for any further
conversation. It wouldn’t have been
helpful at this stage of reaching out, where I’m trying to establish a certain
degree of rapport, to just blatantly disagree with him and belittle his
opinion. Better to try to find some
points of agreement and besides, the different religions of the world do have
much in common. Cristo had grown up in
Mexico with a Catholic background, so he was familiar with the story of Adam
and Eve and the Garden of Eden, which is where I began. “It’s true, the Bible says that since Adam’s
sin, everyone has knowledge of good and evil, a God-given conscience, and
everyone has broken it in some way.
Though we know right from wrong, we still rebel against God every time
we sin, in much the same way Adam and Eve rebelled against God when they chose
to eat the forbidden fruit. The problem
that all religions claim to solve is how can we be reconciled with God even
though we have rebelled against Him by breaking his commands? Most would say we can pay for our sins with
our good actions, but Christianity is unique in saying we can’t pay that debt
ourselves, but that God paid it for us through Jesus’ death on the cross”. Cristo had a lot of questions, and we talked
there in that shopping aisle for over half an hour while employees and
customers filed past. It turned out that
Cristo is seeking to know more about religion and has been visiting different
churches in the process. His last visit
was a different location of my own church.
We made plans to meet again in a week or so to continue our discussion
over coffee. Please be in prayer for
him!
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