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What God Really Wants You to Know: God's Universal Truths Shared by All World Religions by C. David Lundberg Heavenlight Press
book review by Jeanette J. Jennis
"Sometimes it can be surprising to remember that we are spiritual beings, temporarily inhabiting a physical form. We are, in reality, spirit, and spirit is mystical."
Searching beyond the established precepts of his early Christian faith, the author felt a compelling need to seek out spiritual truths found in other worldwide religions. Throughout his book, Lundberg respectfully and joyfully conveys traditional and universal messages attributed to seven major religions: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism and Confucianism. Each inspiring chapter presents an important spiritual principle, such as inner peace, harmlessness, forgiveness, patience, and humility, with quotes from Christian texts that are masterfully augmented with selected writings from other faiths. Both time-honored orthodox points of view as well as the sometimes overlooked or misunderstood mystical interpretations are discussed.
This is not merely a mélange of spiritualism, but a way to decode the major religious movements into singular and, often like, messages. Discerning and poetic renderings from The Bible, The Quran, The Tanakh, Old Testament, The Bhagavad Gita, The Upanishad, Tao Teh Ching, Confucian Analects and numerous other sacred texts from the world's major religions reveal the author's unquestionably sincere intent to embrace and extend a sense of understanding, love, and peace, rather than a divisive judgment. His personal conviction is that we can engage in a spiritual life that expresses oneness through deepening faith, self-responsibility, and compassion. "These promptings have been so strong," the author writes, "that there seemed absolutely no choice in the matter—I had to write this book."
Lundberg's obvious devotion speaks to the heart and soul, urging us to align with the Divine that abides within each of us. By our willing acceptance of unity, Divine Purpose naturally unfolds and brings an end to unfounded religious conflicts, thus ushering in peaceful co-existence.