Nirvana-Shmana

Considering how long it's been since I've posted, I'm not surprised if many of you think it's because I have nothing to write about! The reality is I've had about 10 million and 1 things that I could talk about, and thus couldn't write an entire post about one without rabbit-trailing off into the others. Maybe that's just an easy copout, but as I once again left my Philosophy 220: Intro to Comparative Religion class tonight, I couldn't help but share what has been on my heart and mind. Tonight was Buddhism lecture #2, and we didn't learn much more about the religion itself anymore than we did last week. Though I'm confident my professor would summarily drop me if he knew I was about to try to dump 6 1/2 hours of lecture into a brief nutshell, it seems to me that Buddhism can essentially be summed up this way: Life is a mass jumble of random action-reaction involving human beings obtaining either good or bad karma, ultimately with the goal of being knocked off the wheel of reincarnation which is to reach Pari-Nirvana. Although, because everything is in a perpetual state of change, nothing has essential identity, therefore nothing truly exists, only pain and suffering. Therefore, there really is no desk, there is no tree... there is no you, and there is no me. Inevitably, it begs the question... what's the point?! Towards the end of class my friends Matt, Anna, Tyler and myself enjoyed a conversation through a series of scribble notes, ultimately concluding this: for man to make an excuse NOT to worship the true and living God he must come up with an alternative. Because God is essentially Truth (John 1:1), for man to abandon God he must abandon Truth. I realized tonight that this incredibly simple reality shines a huge light on the nature of my pre-salvation wicked heart, in that though this truth is so clear and simple, we can't see it when we're DEAD in sin and natural rebellion against our Creator! (Eph. 2:1-3). It's absolutely staggering to me to face the fact as one who has been transformed through the work of my Savior at Calvary, and being sanctified by the Spirit working through the Word, that even heresy points my heart to the cross. As I said to my dad tonight, it's essentially irrelevant whether I hear a sermon affirming Biblical Truth, or a false prophet preaching error, God still grows my heart more in tune with His precious good news in the Scripture. I've said this before, but listening to these lectures on Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and even Roman Catholicism and Islam, ALL remind me of a precious Master who grows me in God-exalting, Truth-based, Holiness-centered Theology that crushes hopeless and empty religious systems that all crash into the same dead end. Praise be to the Most High, all glory and majesty be unto His Name!

"For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God" (Romans 4:2).