During our trip to Disney World we happened to come across this statue of Buddha inside one of the stores at Epcot's China village. Although not surprising in itself, since nearly 55% of the Chinese population is Buddhist, the money left in the hands of the statue was something I had never seen. So I did a little research and discovered that most likely this money was left by individuals seeking a blessing from Buddha or seeking to earn favor from another god. This is interesting when Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) never taught that he was a god or that he should be worshiped as a god. In fact many modern Buddhist don't believe in God at all. Even more troubling is when one considers they are seeking a blessing from a regular man whose bones are still in the ground. However, as a former Hindu, Buddha believed in millions of finite gods and goddesses. I have found that in America, Christians and churches typically fail to reach out to Buddhists because they don't understand their religion or because of the large amount of publicity given to Muslims around the world, which keeps Islam in the spotlight. But leave no doubt there are over 613 million Buddhists in this world who need Jesus Christ.
My advice is to focus on the gospel message of Jesus Christ when evangelistic encounters present themselves...for it is the message we are saved by!
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