To any Muslim that chooses to study the history, the Quran, the Hadiths, and the habits of Islamists, those that preach, teach and lead, keep your eyes wide open.  Be objective.  Learn and compare.  Do not be coerced or indoctrinated to believe that which is not true.  As a follower, Islam will fail you.  The afterlife offered is not correct.  

Islam is a religion that is purposed not to fill you with God’s spirit, but to order you to comply with man’s laws, laws established by Muhammad, Caliphs that followed, and other self-proclaimed spiritual leaders. Allah does not claim to have his spirit in you and with you to guide you.  It is the Quran that guides you along with the self-imposed Islamic leadership.  Islamic Law, Sharia, contrived, is the compelling mandate for all Muslims. Those that interpret, even compose, the Laws are the ones that tell you what to do and what not to do.  They also establish punishments. So entrenched in their own ideology they impose the threat of death, even carrying out executions, for those that choose (thus, no choice) to find an alternative path or religion. This is the Islamic Law of Apostasy.

Individuals have a choice, personally anyway.  They may be constrained by their culture or society in exercising this right publicly, but morally the choice remains.  God (the biblical God) provides freedom of choice.  Allah (the Quran’s version of god) does not.  However a Muslim can be internally Christian, as many are, to avoid being punished for openly choosing an alternative religion.  

To a Muslim Islam is a religion.  To the rest of the world it is an ideology.  It is a framework of control for those born into or once declared to be a Muslim. They are indoctrinated to believe the mandates of this ideology are in fact a spiritual blessing that can provide a life eternal, a life after death, with benefits that are, in fact, bizarre;  such as endless virgins to sleep with, for men, women, boys and girls, and the most desired earthly items readily available for consumption or use. No-one that delves into the tenets of Islam objectively can accept that it is anything other than an oppressive forced way of life.  The barriers to freedom are widespread.  

To a follower of Christ, Christianity is not a religion, it is a choice.

Religion, the term, suggests a political structure.  There are Christian religions. They are structured in a way to provide constituent’s methods for following the laws of the Bible. The church bureaucracy is defined and the responsibility of those who teach and preach outlined. The goal of each Christian religion is to have members believe in Christ as savior, to understand we are all sinners, and through God’s grace we can repent and be saved.   Examples are Episcopalian, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Baptist, even Catholic.  And there are variations of each.  A simpler approach for many who believe in Christ, who accept the Word of God (the Bible), is to delve into the Word daily and find their own footing within the pages of a book that in itself is God.  They can also join, be part of a Christian religion, keeping, I feel, an open mind, aware there are man-made elements to the whole truth put forward, while at the same time having dedicated servants, educated, ordained, and devoted to the Lord, who are studied and well versed in the Word and can help to further understanding, as well as guide their people.  The Church is important. 

But be aware.  There is a history of abuse in the religions considered Christian, even the Catholic church.  These abuses are caused by men taking their authority as teacher, preacher, and scholar, ordained, self-proclaimed, and pious to a level that God never intended.  It is the innate sin nature of every human, corrupted by the material world, a world Satan intended as competition for the hearts, minds and souls of every human. Only independent minds and convicted persons filled with the spirit of the Lord can discern the differences.  However it does take a willingness to study, to believe, to accept and not be coerced by those that tell you there is but one way.  

For Christians they can discover with their eyes wide open the right path, but for Muslims there is no correct path to the eternal kingdom.  Inherent in its construct is the evils of man explaining a paradise as an objective, a paradox suggesting devotion to those who collectively created this ideology as godly persons endowed with the knowledge of salvation.  Islam is a wholly devised program of suppression to those who place themselves on higher planes than their peers.  It offers an afterlife more as the pleasures of this life on steroids, and less as a beautiful realm where God actually reigns. 

From the NIV Bible, John 1-2, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.”  When you have a Bible in hand it is as holding God as close to you as possible.  It can fill your every need, your every void, with truth and understanding. It gives you answers.  From 2 Timothy 3:18, “All Scripture (the Bible) is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness.”  It is life’s guide.  When you have yourself, and your family, unified in Christ, then your house is in order.  The world is not to be our guide, but God. And the Word is God. 

The world is a tempting environment.  If God is ignored we can become complacent in accepting that all is possible, and our actions have no consequences other than what manmade laws mandate.  The more egregious of sins, such as murder and theft, can be punished.  But even today there are political leaders, those that make the laws, that have opened the exit doors of their court houses to free offenders without consequences, even without bail.  They can go and do again what they were arrested for in the first place.  There must be consequences for ones actions.  The Bible makes it clear that to live a life eternal, to be saved, is to know and understand God and his saving Grace through himself, as son made man to live among us, so we would know Him.  Then he took the punishment we all deserve for our sinful nature, so that we can be saved.  Mans laws may work during our earthly existence, but will not when it comes to God’s judgment.  Islam takes man’s laws and makes them as their own, as total obedience makes a human sanctified. It is not to the law that we are made holy.

Islam tries to insure the temptations of life are never accepted, a means to control your life, your choices. Superficially it sounds as if Islam is God’s law (their god being Allah) fully explained and interpreted into Sharia, or Islamic Law.  But God never intended man to make his laws the order of the day.  Even the Lord said we are to obey authorities, but that following the Lord is an individual matter.  Man is free, in God’s eyes, and needs to make the right choices himself.  That is what the Christian life outlines. Let your government, manmade laws, order their people within the boundaries of their domain, but not deny God, or become God’s substitute, using Allah or Government, as if they are the ones that decide on your eternal fate.

Islam will fail you.  Atheism will fail you.  Following Christ will not.

Grace and Peace

by

Thomas Balderston

Author and Blogger

www.TomBalderston.Blogspot.com (political views too)