The Saving Power of Christ Jesus

By PETER MUNYAO

In an attempt to unveil Christ's great saving power and love, this book highlights and compiles various texts that showcase God's unlimited wisdom, grace, and truth embodied in Christ Jesus. Peter Munyao has written this book in the quest for raising consciousness among all civilizations, not by new information but by the reiteration of that which was in the beginning, the state of oneness with God.
In a world mired with chaos, the pursuit of true order and inner peace can be realized in accepting Christ Jesus, not just as a teacher but also as the savior of humankind. A life full of meaning and purpose, reinvigorated by His power unto eternity, can be manifested during our human existence. True change comes from inside and real transformation begins when a person believes right. It's all about the finished work of Christ Jesus on the cross. This is the great grace and truth paradigm.

 

Let the power flow!

• Language: English
• Publisher: PETER MUNYAO
• Release date: Apr 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201219062

Book preview

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Humanity has been in the quest for spiritual enlightenment and oneness with God since the dawn of time (Genesis 4:26). Over the generations, different religious customs, practices and beliefs have emerged and have been adopted by distinct communities worldwide. The spread of religion, entangled with historical wars and politics, has been witnessed over centuries. Many questions have arisen regarding the moral standpoint of the revered, holy and without blemish precepts of God and His love for equity, peace, and justice.

According to Margaret Minnicks, most religions have the following things in common:

A supreme being to worship

Sacred texts for instructions

A golden rule to follow for instruction on how people should relate to others

A pilgrimage that may or may not be required by some religions

On the values of Buddhism and its origin: the central teachings involve the commitments to abstain from killing living beings, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying and intoxication. Within the Buddhist doctrine, they are meant to develop mind and character to make progress on the path to enlightenment (PBS online, 2022).

Historians estimate that the founder of Buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama, was the son of an Indian warrior-king. Gautama led an extravagant life through early adulthood, reveling in the privileges of his social caste. But when he was bored of the indulgences of royal life, Gautama wandered into the world in search of understanding. After encountering an older man, an ill man, a corpse and an ascetic, Gautama was convinced that suffering lay at the end of all existence. He renounced his princely title and became a monk, depriving himself of worldly possessions in the hope of comprehending the truth of the world around him. The culmination of his search came while meditating beneath a tree. He finally understood how to be free from suffering and ultimately achieve ‘salvation.’ Following this epiphany, Gautama was known as the Buddha, meaning the Enlightened One. He spent the remainder of his life journeying about India, teaching others what he had come to understand.

On the values of Hinduism and its origin: most scholars believe that it started somewhere between 2300 B.C. and 1500 B.C. in the Indus Valley, near modern-day Pakistan. But many Hindus argue that their faith is timeless and has always existed. Unlike other religions, Hinduism has no one founder but is instead a fusion of various beliefs.

The core values of Hinduism state four goals in human life (Roger Gabriel, 2019): Kama, the pursuit of pleasure; Artha, the pursuit of material success (the word artha literally translates as ‘meaning, sense, goal, purpose or essence’.); dharma, leading a just and good life; and moksha, enlightenment, which frees a person from suffering and unites the individual soul with Brahman after living many lives. To achieve this state, the following three ways are taught:

The way of works

The way of knowledge

The way of devotion

On the values of Kabbalah and its origin: The term Kabbalah refers specifically to the form of Jewish mysticism that became widespread in the middle ages. However, in recent decades, it has become a generic term for the entirety of Jewish mystical thought literally meaning that which is received. Kabbalists believe that God moves in mysterious ways, whether it entails a sacred text, an experience, or the way things work. However, Kabbalists also believe that true knowledge and understanding of that inner, mysterious process is obtainable, and through that knowledge, the greatest intimacy with God can be attained.

The Zohar, a collection of written, mystical commentaries on the Torah, is considered the underpinning of Kabbalah.  Written in medieval Aramaic and medieval Hebrew, the Zohar is intended to guide Kabbalists in their spiritual journey, helping them attain the greater levels of connectedness with God that they desire. 

Kabbalistic thought often is considered Jewish mysticism.  Its practitioners tend to view the Creator and the Creation as a continuum rather than as discrete entities, and they desire to experience intimacy with God.

There are three dimensions to almost all forms of Jewish mysticism, which are likely to be understood by only a small number of people who possess specialized knowledge or interest in the topic: 

The investigative

The experiential

The practical

The investigative aspect of Kabbalah in­volves searching the hidden reality of the universe for secret knowledge about its origins and its organization—a quest that is more esoteric than mystical. 

The experiential dimension of Kabbalah involves the actual quest for mystical experience: a direct, intuitive, unmediated encounter with a close but concealed Deity. As Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, mystics ...want to taste the whole wheat of spirit before it is ground by the millstones of reason. Mystics specifically seek the ec­static experience of God, not merely knowledge about God.

The practical dimension of Kabbalah involves rituals for gaining and exercising power to effect change in our world and the celestial worlds beyond ours. This power is generated by performing commandments, summon­ing angelic and controlling demonic forces, and otherwise tapping into the supernatural energies present in Creation. The practical aspect of Kabbalah furthers God’s intention in the world, advancing good, subduing evil, healing, and mending. The true master of this art fulfills the human potential to be a co-creator with God (Rabbi Geoffrey W. Dennis, 2014).

On the values of Gnosticism and its origin: Gnosticism was a religion and philosophical movement active between 200 BCE and 400 CE. Based on the idea of Gnosis, the Greek word for knowledge, it focused on salvation through the discovery and fostering of secret, inner knowledge. To Gnostics, this world is a corrupt realm of suffering and evil created by a being who was not the true God but thought he was. Their goal, through Gnosis, was to wake a divine spark within themselves and gain the sacred knowledge needed to be free of this world after death. While we don't know how Gnosticism in general began, we know the belief dates back several centuries before the birth of Christ. However, when Christianity reached the Hellenistic world, the Gnostics were among the first to adopt it, though they reinterpreted it into their own philosophy.

Gnostic Christians believed that the Hebrew God was a being they called the Demiurge, a ‘corrupt’ being who created the physical world but gave it his innate flaws of wickedness (Sunday Moulton, 2020). In contrast, they believed Christ was actually a living form of divine knowledge created by Sophia, a being of wisdom created by the actual True God. They believed Jesus came to earth to teach humans how to free themselves from bondage to the Demiurge's realm. While this might seem shocking, remember that Christianity was in its early days and many different doctrines existed simultaneously (Sunday Moulton, 2020).

One of the most outstanding issues dividing the Gnostics from their fellow Christian sects was the issue of Docetism, the assertion that Christ never died. As Gnostics believed the material world was evil, they refused to believe that Jesus was a fleshly incarnation. Instead, they claim he only appeared to have a physical form taken from this existence, thus he could never truly die. Clearly, this stood in extreme opposition to