 | Reverend Dennis Paschke is the senior pastor at Evangel Holton United Methodist Church, in Holton Kansas. Evangel church is a vital and growing congregation full of life that is changing lives and our community one person at a time. Dennis’ family emigrated from North Dakota to Alberta, Canada to homestead when his father was just a young boy. Rev. Paschke returned to the United States and has lived in many parts of the country. His life has afforded him many blessings before answering God’s call to full-time ministry, including being a vice president of a Fortune 100 company, serving as a chairman of the 1988 Winter Olympic Games and holding a U.S. patent. His greatest blessing in life is his walk with Christ! He believes strong faith always engages the heart and mind. EDUCATION: BSEE from the University of Calgary, Canada, and a Master’s of Divinity from Saint Paul School of Theology. FAMILY: He is married to wife Dawn and they have three sons Corey, Kyle and Marc. The family also includes one “wonder-dog” named Tucker! You can reach Reverend Paschke via email dpasch01@gmail.com. |
Religion
2012-08-01 14:18:17
Salvation and the variety of religious opinions
Q-The world is a big place. There are lots of religions. Some claim their religion to be the only one that will allow entrance into Heaven. Some claim it will be sufficient just to know God and desire to be with Him in heaven. Why would God allow the creation of so many religions and the overwhelming confusion they have caused with respect to salvation?
A-The greatest power God gave us is the power to choose. It holds the power of life and death.
We are granted freedom by God to choose to live our lives anyway we want. In the story of Adam and Eve we see that God gives us total freedom to live free from all the challenges of this world under His promises and blessings if we will only do one thing. Absolutely everything else is within our freedom to choose! That one thing will be the one thing we most often choose to ignore, but it is what is needed to know God and to be with Him here and in heaven. That one thing we choose to ignore is to live in accord with the Will of God.
Adam and Eve were created and put in Paradise living in the present as well as eternity as long as they would follow His will but they used the power of choice to choose not to follow God’s will in their lives. As a result they choose not to live in intimacy with God. This is the story of our human condition. We all fall under this reality of often choosing to live against God’s will.
This very same power of choice is the cause of so many religions. They are humankind’s search for the path to living in intimacy with the Creator of the Universe, God. Over time many others have come with their own ideals and paths to connection with the Creative force of the Universe that is the power of Wisdom that defines the creation and everything in it. These have become many differing religions. But none have ever allowed the experience of that reality except for those who choose Jesus Christ as Lord over their life and death! There is only one that is true and verified in the lives of communities of faith over the world and across 20 centuries. That is the path that leads to salvation found in Christ.
When you follow this path in life it leads to the experience the fullness of heaven in you here and now as a foretaste of the promise of eternity with God forever!
