I was in & out of cults, especially the New Age mov’t. The Mov’t had many aspects, side shoots & over lapping concepts. A lot of those cults were run by charismatic, dogmatic leaders. These leaders were always viewed as right & often were manipulative, despite what they said about finding God or God running things! Or only their spiritual truths were important. But there was over-lap. And not hard to keep track of their heresies. They had some crazy ideas, I mean besides the fact that they were gonna to bring world peace, the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, etc. I once heard a young yogi telling the crowd they had gathered, a story. He finished the story by saying his brother always wanted more money from the crowds, and then he said! “And he was right!” I think he was referring to a previous sentence about God loving everyone. But it came out as “we’re fleecing you!”
I had a very strong revelation of God when he saved me. It took about 6 months to really relinquish my wrong beliefs, even as I started reading the Bible and going to church 3 times a week for services.
Reincarnation was the hardest thing to stop believing in. But God gave me very real reasons why these other cults & even churches were were wrong and far from him, and the truth & the ultimate relationship with the living God.
So I studied and learned the Bible, I memorized texts on how to follow & obey Christ. Before God saved me, I had also read the holy books of the world, in my search for God, but I never found him in the Qu’ran, from Islam; the Bhagavad-Gita from Hinduism; books on Theosophy, which I consider to be dangerous, demonic doctrines, even in my unsaved state. All that astral travel was scary! I had a Buddhist friend who gave me many books on Tibetan Buddhism, but I could never believe an Onotolgy with no God. I also talked with Christian cults, like JWs, Mormons, and other cults. But no sign of God jumping out at me to change my life & mind. Or me convincing them!
I started reading my Bible at night before I was saved, to honour my Christian grandmother. It was a newer Catholic Bible. But very poetic & flowing in nature., it was in modern English which made it a pleasure to read! (No need for a Bible from the 16th century AD where I didn’t understand half the obsolete or changed vocabulary, nor the convoluted grammar.) Which goes to show, you can get saved out of even a Catholic. Besides, the text was translated well from the original languages & God saved me anyway! But don’t read the footnotes, that constantly said the Bible was wrong and the Catholic Church was right.
World religions was mandatory in my seminary, and I took a in person course at a local seminary for transfer credit. The prof was incredible. He was a missionary in Indonesia to Muslims and head hunters, (not like those looking for candidates for a job, but real, primitive tribes who killed their enemies, then cut off their heads & shrunk them down!) Plus he knew about all the other religions, and would often play devil’s advocate in classes, and get us to role play being missionaries to that religion, trying to persuade a random person on the street to hear the message of the gospel. We didn’t usually win that game. Our prof arranged a visit to the oldest mosque in North America, in the north of Edmonton. Prayers were on when we arrived. So we talked to their “welcome committee!) Later, we explored the building, and had a Q & A with the Imam.
But remember, all the students in that class were long time, solid believers. Many were pastors in their own churches or ministries. And they knew the Bible well. But much to our surprise, so did the Iman. He answered all our questions with Bible verses! Apparenty, he got his degree in Egypt in comparative religion. He knew the Bible as well as us. I remember one young man, a pastor went right to the point and asked if they could exchange emails and correspond with him. His church had decided to do outreach to Muslims, and he wanted to know what they believed. So, his prayer was to convert the Imam, then people in their neighbourhood. I never hear what happened.
One basic difference between Islam and Christianity, is that Immanence is all about the God who comes near, in the form of Jesus Christ, who died in the cross for our sins. Emmanuel -“God is with us,” or “God is near.” But the Muslim religion doesn’t believe this. They believe God is only Transcendent. He lives far above us, in heaven, and none of us can ever know him, or even know if we are saved or not!
Our missionary professor asked the professor, “Could God come to earth as a man? “ The Iman was quick to speak!
“He could make himself a man, but he would not!” End of a discussion of the Trinity. Some deep theological truths you need to know about that doctrine, in order to reach them with the gospel.
Get stronger in your own faith, unless you carry some baggage from a former religion and needed learn to counter in your own brain. When you have grown in Christ, go back to your calling. Pray about what God would have you do!
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