Jesus In Control Of His Destiny

 Jesus is said to have "set his face toward Jerusalem." He knew that He was born to die! His destiny was in His own hands as revealed by His Father. There was no turning back, even at the Garden of Gethsemane He prayed in relinquishment: "Thy will be done." There could be no conflict of interest or of wills within the Godhead. He boldly proclaimed His "fate": "That everything written of Him must be fulfilled."  Remember, Jesus volunteered to go to the cross and accept His Passion on our behalf! 

The fickle crowds (four days latter the shouted to crucify Him) did try to crown Him king at His triumphal entry and He did say that it was now His time, but He must be crucified first and He knew this--having prophesied it five times. He had said, "No prophet can die outside Jerusalem."  But He refused to stop the adorations and acclamations of the crowd and said that if they were restrained, the stones would cry out! 

Throughout His ministry, "Mum's the word so to speak," but now they vociferously shouted Hosanna to the Son of David!" This was prophecy and that blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD.  Jesus literally allowed them to throw His hat in the ring: for one doesn't become King by mere announcement!  There's protocol and tradition. He was not using figures of speech or a play on words and didn't beat around the bush anymore! 

We must realize a few points about Christ's fate: this was not karma (Jesus was innocent and didn't deserve this fate as a karma--which exact reward/punishment for deeds); nor was Jesus the victim of circumstances; nor was He intending to set us a good example; nor was He intending to become another religious martyr; or even champion a good moral cause to be remembered. In fact, Jesus was in full control all the time and this was Providence, which is God's answer to happenstance or coincidence. 

What's Behind Karma?

The demonic doctrine of karma (from Hinduism, New Age, and even Buddhism) must be exposed because, in this so-called Age of Aquarius, modern man is fooled and taken in by Eastern philosophy and thinking, letting it influence the Christian faith. Both Eastern faiths adhere to this and believe that actions in this life automatically determine your fate. Many Christians flippantly, or even seriously, say, "What goes around, comes around," and think that everyone gets precisely what they deserve in life like God has a ledger-book mentality, just keeping score of our deeds and dealing with us accordingly. Case in point: Job's friends accused him of evil-doing and told him to repent.

The beauty of our faith is that it is the opposite of karma: We don't get what we do deserve (mercy) and we do get what we don't deserve (grace)--both contrary to the doctrine of karma and its exact-reward concept. God doesn't just weigh out our good deeds versus our bad ones and deal with us as the result in the afterlife. Eastern thinking believes you cannot escape karma because it is the system of justice in the universe--people get precisely what they deserve, whether good or bad, and what's more, you should not interfere with someone else's karma--everyone is an island or a rock to himself and has to deal with his own reality and fate in life because he deserves it. This erroneous thinking also says that you can overcome bad karma with good karma, and this would make one believe it's alright to do evil if one balances it out or neutralizes it with a good deed--sort of like wasting fuel on a solo flight but planting a tree in remorse to make up for it.

How do we know karma is wrong? The Bible teaches that suffering is not something we can comprehend and that there's an easy answer to--one only need consult Job. No religion has a complete answer; God expects faith, but He gives us meaning in suffering.   If karma were true, why did Jesus suffer more than any man--did he deserve his sufferings? There is not a man alive that God is not good too and doesn't deserve to die a thousand deaths--even believers. George Whitefield was asked what he thought of the poor souls going to the gallows: "There, but for the grace of God, go I." It is said that if God were to actually wipe out evil from the earth, none of us would be left. The question is not why is there evil, but why is there good. The psalmist in Psalm 103:10 (ESV) delineates our thinking: "He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities."

Case in point: If you remember the massacre of refugees by the Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in Thailand (known as the "Killing Fields") in the mid-'70s, you should be informed that this happened on Buddhist turf, and they refused to help their own Buddhist brothers who were getting their comeuppance  (some 300,000 stranded in no-mans-land on the Cambodian border), because they felt they shouldn't interfere with their karma--Buddha taught that you are to be an island to yourself. It was Christian goodwill and relief organizations that stepped into the save the day and be the example of Christ's love for the outcast and rescued those in need. This is an example of that what the world needs is more Christian love, according to Lord Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, and mathematician, who happened to be atheist. There is no basis for the love and compassion of one's fellow man in a world of karma.

There is a certain manner in which we get what we deserve, reaping what we sow, but this basically refers to our eternal destiny whether in the flesh or the spirit and if we are in the habit of judging we shall be judged accordingly. Spiritually speaking, we are to sow to the Spirit, not the flesh. But Christians do indeed suffer the consequences of their acts but are forgiven and there is no eternal aftermath. The doctrine of karma has to do with the exact-reward concept that you cannot escape it and it is the final judge of your destiny.

One must not say that he has blown it and will suffer for it the rest of his life, because God doesn't punish us for our sins--He only prunes or disciplines us (according to Romans 8:28 all things will work out for the good) that we may grow and learn a lesson and be sanctified. God isn't finished with us yet and is still working on us--we are a work in progress! The immediate response when something disastrous happens, is that God is out to get us, or we may ask, "What did I do to deserve this?" We are not capable of understanding the motives of God and must accept by faith that He intends it for good just like Joseph said, "You meant it for evil, but God intended it for good" (cf. Gen. 50:20).

And so why is karma evil? It denies grace and mercy and means that there is an impersonal force in the universe meting out justice mechanically like fate. God is personal and deals with us accordingly, and knows us and has a plan of good and not of evil toward us and as Psalm 145:9 (ESV) says, "The LORD is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made." There is no one that will be able to claim that God is not good and that they got more than they deserved in life because of His blessings. The uniqueness of Christian thinking is the introduction of the concepts of grace and mercy as seen in the atonement of Christ.

People that believe in karma don't help out their fellow man, because they believe everyone must suffer his own personal karma. Karma denies the reality of a substitutionary death (no one should interfere with someone's karma), as done by Christ on our behalf. We get what we don't deserve and are delivered from what we do deserve! Eastern salvation or "nirvana" is released from this impersonal law of karma.

God is not only "great" like Islam proclaims, but He is also "good," and this is what they deny, seeing God as capricious, arbitrary, or whimsical and able to treat man unpredictably, according to any rational basis. This doctrine leads to pride in thinking because people think they are "self-made" and don't owe God anything for their prosperity (it is God who makes one have the power to get rich per Deuteronomy 8:17-18). This reminds me of the definition of a Victorian Englishman: A self-made man who worships his creator.

There is justice (meting out punishment as deserved and giving one his due). But God metes out justice with mercy and there is not always justice in this life--in which case they will meet it in eternity, so no one ultimately escapes it, except by the mercy of God in Christ. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Cf. Gen 18:25). Governments are God's ordained means to monitor evil and punish wrongdoers, but God's justice is never escaped. No one will be punished beyond that which strict justice requires, but believers escape justice by virtue of their faith in the atoning work of Christ on the cross, where He suffered for us.

We must acknowledge God's ultimate control of our destiny and that it is in His hands--He is sovereign over all. Remember what Jesus said to those who inquired why a person was born blind, whether he had sinned or his parents: "Neither, it was so the glory of God should be manifest." It is good news that there is no karma (I'm not saying we don't sometimes get what we deserve, but there is no iron-clad law that cannot be escaped and our destiny isn't controlled by it), and one should rejoice in the fact that we can say regarding our salvation: "What did I ever do, to deserve this?" This answer is nothing, it was all grace--God gets all the glory from start to finish.

I'm getting disgruntled thinking of Christians who believe in "karma." The law of karma states that there is an accumulation of good and bad karma and that the total net differential is one's karma. And you can compensate bad karma with accumulated good karma!   This is the belief that bad deeds (there is a causal relationship between deeds and events) catch up to you and you can offset them by good deeds or "good karma." It is analogous to the business executive with a private jet that plants trees to offset his carbon footprint (his guilt).  Ultimately, it leads to the belief that you are judged by whether your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds to get into heaven. That is to say, some deserve heaven and some don't.

Buddhists and Hindus believe in "karma" and that everyone is an island suffering his own "just dessert." The Hindus of India have trouble with the lower castes because they think they are getting what they deserve. "If someone is suffering, that's his karma." Buddha taught that we are all an "island to ourselves." Remember the disciples asking Jesus "Who sinned?"   I believe in the "Law of the Harvest", and that we reap what we sow, according to Gal. 6:7. Remember what Hosea said: "They sow the wind, they shall reap the whirlwind" (Hos. 8:7). If we sow to the flesh we will reap destruction, and if we sow to the Spirit we will reap eternal life (our destiny respectively). There is a way out with the Lord, and that is mercy and grace. Psalm 103:10 proclaims, "He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities." 

That is the essence of Christianity: We get what we don't deserve (grace) and we don't get what we do deserve (mercy). I heard one guy say that all he wanted from God was what he deserved! Well, do I need to point out that we all deserve hell? Thank God that there is a God of a second (or third, etc.) chance! God doesn't keep a record of all our sins to hold against us, but has thrown them to the bottom of the sea and sent them as far away as the east is from the west. (Cf. Mic.7:19; Psalm 103:12.)

The big dilemma is how do you explain the sufferings of Christ and of Job? I have heard it said by a wise man that if we suffer it is so that others won't have to, and if we don't suffer it is because others have. Thank God for forgiveness and a fresh start; we can be born again to a new life in Christ no matter we may have botched up our life. We are all a "work in progress." "Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground..." (Hos. 10:12). karma is a word that should not be in the believer's conversation, except in disapproval.

In summation: karma is balderdash, poppycock, and hogwash. (We have a personal loving God that cares for us individually who knows each of us and has a plan for our lives.) "He has not dealt with us according to our sins...." By and large, karma is simply a mechanical, iron-clad law of cause and effect for good and bad deeds and their effects that is counter-Christian.    Soli Deo Gloria!

What's Behind Karma?

The demonic doctrine of karma (from Hinduism and Buddhism) must be exposed because, in this so-called Age of Aquarius, modern man is fooled and taken in by Eastern philosophy and thinking, letting it influence the Christian faith.  Both Eastern faiths adhere to this and believe that actions in this life automatically determine your fate.  Many Christians flippantly, or even seriously, say, "What goes around, comes around," and think that everyone gets precisely what they deserve in life like God has a ledger-book mentality, just keeping score of our deeds and dealing with us accordingly. Case in point:  Job's friends accused him of evil-doing and told him to repent.

The beauty of our faith is that it is the opposite of karma:  We don't get what we do deserve (mercy) and we do get what we don't deserve (grace)--both contrary to the doctrine of karma and its exact-reward concept.  God doesn't just weigh out our good deeds versus our bad ones and deal with us as the result in the afterlife.  Eastern thinking believes you cannot escape karma because it is the system of justice in the universe--people get precisely what they deserve, whether good or bad, and what's more, you should not interfere with someone else's karma--everyone is an island or a rock to himself and has to deal with his own reality and fate in life because he deserves it.  This erroneous thinking also says that you can overcome bad karma with good karma, and this would make one believe it's alright to do evil if one balances it out or neutralizes it with a good deed--sort of like wasting fuel on a solo flight but planting a tree in remorse to make up for it.

How do we know karma is wrong?  The Bible teaches that suffering is not something we can comprehend and that there's an easy answer to--one only need consult Job.  If karma were true, why did Jesus suffer more than any man--did he deserve his sufferings?  There is not a man alive that God is not good too and doesn't deserve to die a thousand deaths--even believers.  George Whitefield was asked what he thought of the poor souls going to the gallows:  "There, but for the grace of God, go I."  It is said that if God were to actually wipe out evil from the earth, none of us would be left.  The question is not why is there evil, but why is there good.    The psalmist in Psalm 103:10 (ESV) delineates our thinking:  "He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities."

Case in point:  If you remember the massacre of refugees by the Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in Thailand (known as the "killing fields") in the mid-'70s, you should be informed that this happened on Buddhist turf, and they refused to help their own Buddhist brothers (some 300,000 stranded in no-mans-land on the Cambodian border), because they felt they shouldn't interfere with their karma--Buddha taught that you are to be an island to yourself.  It was Christian goodwill and relief organizations that stepped into the save the day and be the example of Christ's love for the outcast and rescued those in need.  This is an example of that what the world needs is more Christian love, according to Lord Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, and mathematician, who happened to be atheist.  There is no basis for the love and compassion of one's fellow man in a world of karma.

There is a certain manner in which we get what we deserve, reaping what we sow, but this basically refers to our eternal destiny whether in the flesh or the spirit and if we are in the habit of judging we shall be judged accordingly.  Spiritually speaking, we are to sow to the Spirit, not the flesh.  But Christians do indeed suffer the consequences of their acts but are forgiven and there is no eternal aftermath.  The doctrine of karma has to do with the exact-reward concept that you cannot escape it and it is the final judge of your destiny.

One must not say that he has blown it and will suffer for it the rest of his life, because God doesn't punish us for our sins--He only prunes or disciplines us (according to Romans 8:28 all things will work out for the good) that we may grow and learn a lesson and be sanctified.  God isn't finished with us yet and is still working on us--we are a work in progress! The immediate response when something disastrous happens, is that God is out to get us, or we may ask, "What did I do to deserve this?"  We are not capable of understanding the motives of God and must accept by faith that He intends it for good just like Joseph said, "You meant it for evil, but God intended it for good" (cf. Gen. 50:20).

And so why is karma evil?  It denies grace and mercy and means that there is an impersonal force in the universe meting out justice mechanically like fate.  God is personal and deals with us accordingly, and knows us and has a plan of good and not of evil toward us and as Psalm 145:9 (ESV) says, "The LORD is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made."  There is no one that will be able to claim that God is not good and that they got more than they deserved in life because of His blessings. The uniqueness of Christian thinking is the introduction of the concepts of grace and mercy as seen in the atonement of Christ.

People that believe in karma don't help out their fellow man, because they believe everyone must suffer his own personal karma.  Karma denies the reality of a substitutionary death (no one should interfere with someone's karma), as done by Christ on our behalf.  We get what we don't deserve and are delivered from what we do deserve!  Eastern salvation or "nirvana" is released from this impersonal law of karma.

God is not only "great" like Islam proclaims, but He is also "good," and this is what they deny, seeing God as capricious, arbitrary, or whimsical and able to treat man unpredictably, according to any rational basis.  This doctrine leads to pride in thinking because people think they are "self-made" and don't owe God anything for their prosperity (it is God who makes one have the power to get rich per Deuteronomy 8:17-18). This reminds me of the definition of an Englishman:  A self-made man who worships his creator.

There is justice (meting out punishment as deserved and giving one his due).  But God metes out justice with mercy and there is not always justice in this life--in which case they will meet it in eternity, so no one ultimately escapes it, except by the mercy of God in Christ.  "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Cf. Gen 18:25).  Governments are God's ordained means to monitor evil and punish wrongdoers, but God's justice is never escaped.  No one will be punished beyond that which strict justice requires, but believers escape justice by virtue of their faith in the atoning work of Christ on the cross, where He suffered for us.

We must acknowledge God's ultimate control of our destiny and that it is in His hands--He is sovereign over all.  Remember what Jesus said to those who inquired why a person was born blind, whether he had sinned or his parents:  "Neither, it was so the glory of God should be manifest."  It is good news that there is no karma (I'm not saying we don't sometimes get what we deserve, but there is no iron-clad law that cannot be escaped and our destiny isn't controlled by it), and one should rejoice in the fact that we can say regarding our salvation: "What did I ever do, to deserve this?" This answer is nothing, it was all grace--God gets all the glory from start to finish.   Soli Deo Gloria!

Christ's Karma

Believing in karma (also called "What goes around, comes around") is one of the oldest traditions, in fact, Job's friends accused him of wrongdoing and asserted he was only getting what he deserved, maybe even less.  In antiquity, people assumed that God rewarded good and punished evil in an immediate payback or recompense.  Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote When Bad Things Happen to Good People and questioned God's goodness whether He was unjust in allowing evil to happen to good people.

His premise, of course, was that there are good people; the Bible says there is none good, no not one. Jesus said only God is good!  It turned out that God is too deep to explain Himself, too kind to be cruel, and to knowledgeable and wise to be wrong or make a mistake. God knows what He's doing and works all things together for our good.  These are coterminous events and not fortuitous at all, God's providence is able to superintend all events to His glory, which is His ultimate goal in all of history.

Why did Jesus suffer then?  He was suffering in our stead and on our behalf; He didn't deserve it and completely volunteered for it:  He said not to weep for Him but for ourselves (we are the sinners that need forgiveness!).  Mercy is not getting what we deserve and Christ paid the price so we wouldn't have to on a debt we couldn't pay.  Grace is when we get what we don't deserve, can't earn, and can never repay in all eternity.  The cross makes possible both mercy and grace as the ultimate expression of Christ's love and compassion for mankind.

If karma were true, why did Christ have to suffer?  He was innocent and certainly suffered more than anyone in history.  It wasn't the nails that kept Him on the cross--He could've come down at will or called 12 legions of angels--but the love in His heart that kept Him to the cross.  The weeping women on the Via Dolorosa (on the way to Calvary) were puzzled as to why Jesus told them to weep for themselves and not Him--He knew what He was getting into.

When Jesus was teaching they asked Him who sinned:  Was it the man born blind or his parents? Jesus had to explain that it was unto the glory of God.  God knows what He is doing and will turn evil into good.  He was able to turn and predestine the most diabolical act in history (cf. Acts 2:23; 4:28) into the crux of history or the most wonderful thing ever done on man's behalf--our salvation!  Joseph said in Gen. 50:20 that even though his brothers meant evil, God meant it for good.  We are all God's vessels, it's just that some of us are vessels of honor and some of dishonor.

In the Eastern traditions they also believe in karma and cannot reconcile the suffering in the world--they think that if someone is suffering, that is their karma and leave him alone to suffer what he deserves.  When the Khmer Rouge and the Pol Pot regime stranded 300,000 refugees in a no-man's--land (known as the "killing fields"), it was Christians who came to the rescue, not Buddhists or Hindus.  This is known as the exact-reward concept and that everyone gets what he deserves in life as payback. Buddha taught man to be an island unto himself. He said you are not to interfere with another person's karma.

But the Bible says, "he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities" in Psalm 103:10.  We too readily say to God when something happens:  "What did I do to deserve this?" But adversity, discipline, suffering, and trials will always come to believers and Christ was honest enough to warn us of the rough road ahead--it will be no bed of roses.

But adversity is meant to build character and Christlikeness:  In a proclamation of faith, Job said, "But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold" (Job 23:10, ESV).  We don't build character through an easy life but through challenges and experience.  It is not what happens to us but in us. The same trial affects different people in different ways: "The same sun melts the butter, hardens the clay."  We are not to question God and judge Him, but He us--we answer to Him!  Christ's passion debunks karma.   Soli Deo Gloria!

Prosperity Theology Or Karma?

This is an age-old complaint: Asaph is appalled at the prosperity of the wicked in Psalm 73. Surely the reward of the wicked is in this life ("...whose reward is in this life...").  The Bible says that the rich and the poor have this in common: The Lord is the maker of them all. To be sure, prosperity is not the sign of God's favor or the litmus test for specific personal blessing--they may just be following the "law of the jungle" and the "survival of the fittest" rule better than the pack.

Some modern-day preachers insist that, if you aren't prospering or aren't in excellent health and successful, that you are out of the will of God or are lacking in faith--like you haven't turned in your spiritual lottery ticket yet. God does indeed bless some of the faithful in all ways even making them rich, and God does indeed bless all believers in some ways--but it is to the discretion of the triune God who gets what blessing.

We live in the "what's-in-it-for- me" gospel or "name-it-and-claim-it preaching where they ask what can God do for them, rather than what we do for Him. This is a spin on Jack Kennedy's speech ("Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country!). Have we forgotten duty to our Creator? They are jumping to conclusions by insisting that God wants all believers to be prosperous (now by whose standard anyway?) and even healthy (we all will die, for instance-it's not cancer that's terminal, it's life (caveat emptor)! Buyer beware!

Watch out for the "prosperity gospel" or even "social gospel", which are misnomers and portray a counterfeit message. If you can't preach this gospel to the starving everywhere it is not the true gospel. They want you to believe that all you need is the right formula, right blessed water, prayer, or faith seed. This is bogus! God promises to meet our legitimate needs and not necessarily our wants. And the reason He meets our needs is so we can do good works (2 Cor. 9:8). Jesus said you will know them by their love (John 13:35), not their prosperity!

Don't store up treasures on earth! Don't rejoice in your 401(k)but in the Lord! I have been told that I'm rich because I don't have any debts and I live in the relative security of income (regardless of how low it is), it meets my needs and gives me enough to give away to God's causes. Being rich (look at the average world income) is only relative and a matter of definition. We are to be spiritually rich--woe to him who is fiscally rich but not spiritually rich.

Now to my thesis: teaching prosperity theology is like teaching karma because you treat God like a soda dispenser or coke machine trying to get what you want out of Him. Press the right buttons, etc. You get the impression that you deserve to be rich because you have sown the seed of faith. Actually, it says in Deut. 8:17-18 that God is the one who makes one prosper and in Isa. 48:17 it says that God leads you in the right ways to riches ("For your own good I teach you and lead you along the right path"). But God also prospers the wicked who play by the rules of God's economy. It also rains on the wicked.

The believers that I know that are prosperous are that way because of good work ethic and wise investments, not because they tithed their way to riches. God is no man's debtor though You cannot out-give God, this is not a ticket to riches (1 Tim. 6:5 says disparagingly that those "...who think that godliness is a means to financial gain" are in error. Karma teaches that you deserve what you get(even from a previous life) and that is contrary to grace and God's blessings. No matter how rich or poor we are, we owe our blessings to God.   Soli Deo Gloria!

What Is "Karma?"

I'm getting disgruntled thinking of Christians who believe in "karma."  The law of karma states that there is an accumulation of good and bad karma and that the total net differential is one's karma. This is the belief that bad deeds (there is a causal relationship between deeds and events) catch up to you and you can offset them by good deeds or "good karma."   It is analogous to the business executive with a private jet that plants trees to offset his carbon footprint (his guilt).

Ultimately, it leads to the belief that you are judged by whether your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds to get into heaven. That is to say, some deserve heaven and some don't.

Buddhists and Hindus believe in "karma" and that everyone is an island suffering his own "just dessert."   The Hindus of India have trouble with the lower castes because they think they are getting what they deserve. "If someone is suffering, that's his karma."  Buddha taught that we are all an "island to ourselves."  Remember the disciples asking Jesus "Who sinned, the baby or the parents, that he should be born blind?"   They say, "What goes around, comes around."  During the "killing fields" of Cambodia in the '70s, the Pol Pot and the  Khmer Rouge was torturing 300,000 refugees and it was the Christians that showed mercy, not the Buddhist monks.  You might say they thought they were getting their comeuppance.

I believe in the "Law of the Harvest", and that we reap what we sow, according to Gal. 6:7.   Remember what Hosea said:  "They sow the wind, they shall reap the whirlwind"  (Hos. 8:7).   If we sow to the flesh we will reap destruction, and if we sow to the Spirit we will reap eternal life (our destiny respectively).  There is a way out with the Lord, and that is mercy and grace.  Psalm 103:10 proclaims, "He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities."  That is the essence of Christianity:  We get what we don't deserve (grace) and we don't get what we do deserve (mercy).   I heard one guy say that all he wanted from God was what he deserved!  Well, do I need to point out that we all deserve hell?   Thank God that there is a God of a second (or third, etc.)  chance!  God doesn't keep a record of all our sins to hold against us, but has thrown them to the bottom of the sea and sent them as far away as the east is from the west. (Cf. Mic.7:19; Psalm 103:12.)

The big dilemma is how do you explain the sufferings of Christ and of Job? I have heard it said by a wise man that if we suffer it is so that others won't have to, and if we don't suffer it is because others have.  Thank God for forgiveness and a fresh start;  we can be born again to a new life in Christ no matter we may have botched up our life.   We are all a "work in progress."    "Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground..."  (Hos. 10:12).   karma is a word that should not be in the believer's conversation, except in disapproval.   In summation:  karma is balderdash and hogwash.  (We have a personal loving God that cares for us individually who knows each of us and has a plan for our lives.)  "He has not dealt with us according to our sins...."  By and large, karma is simply a mechanical, iron-clad law of cause and effect for good and bad deeds and their effects.    Soli Deo Gloria!