Your salvation is your responsibility. It's not your religion's, the church's, your parents, or your Christian friend down the street that's going to determine your post-mortum status; But rather your inner drive to want to know what is right.
If you seek the answer with an open heart, you will find it.
My belief in Jesus Christ is
MY approach to the after life. If someone shows me a better way, I'll have a look. But so far, the more I read of Islam, or Buddism or Hinduism or the New Age/Thought movement, the more Christianity "resonates" with me and the more confident I feel about my committment to "try" and live Christian values.
I say "try" because being human subjects me to sin on a daily basis. Being a physical being as well and owning a computer and a television makes it easy to fall victim to all sorts of sin. Yes, I sin frequently. I try not to and I'm better than I was 10 years ago, but the temptations of this physical life are great and abundant. When I finally stopped asking:"Well what's wrong with having sex with someone you're not married to, or why shouldn't I be able to abuse my own body with substances"; and just accepted that it was better for me to avoid these things all together, my life became much simpler and less confusing.
So for me it's a blessing to know that when I ask for forgiveness, I'm never turned away and I don't have to have a limb chopped off, nor do I have to strap a bomb to my body. God's plan is based on Love. Those who don't care to accept this Idea can congregate in a place in the after life where Love is not a requirement nor is it common practice.
I'm saying go find what resonates with you while keeping in mind that your puney existence on this rock could end any time. Find a moral authority that you can feel safe putting your future in and "try" to discipline your life accordingly.
Keep in mind, now is your 2nd chance. If you're lucky enough to wake up tomorrow, you'll have a 3rd chance, and so on, and so on.
After a while, it's hard to say that God is a cruel God when the ball is (and always has been) in your court. If you think the Christian God is cruel, by all means, go out and do your own thing. This is all mythology crap anyway right? Crap invented by prudes to keep people from having fun and to control others. If that's true; hey the jokes on us shmucks. (no big deal) BUT should all this rubbish about Heaven and Hell turn out to be true, well, hey, you can't say nobody told you about it.
With Love,
A
