After 3 ½ weeks in this country, I’ve realized a few things about a culture that is 99 % Muslim that are very distinctive. Having Chai with a person requires only that you’ve met them on the street 30 seconds before you sit down to chat for hours. Watch out for traffic or you WILL be run over. The men are always wearing nice shoes. If you wear shorts and go jogging, you’ll be stared at as if you’re wearing a clown costume – these people exercise in their business suits and head scarves. The main distinction of this country is, of course, the Muslim religion. The daily calls to prayer, the head coverings on many women and the lack of pork products in this nation are just a few of the things that are distinctly Muslim. Since our assignment this month was to go out and meet people, I’ve asked lots of questions about this faith to a range of Muslim-followers.
This is a short synopsis of what I’ve found out:
– Even if you are the most devout Muslim, praying five times a day, doing good things for people and even being the guy who sings the call to prayer, you still may not go to heaven. You only go to heaven if ‘it is the will of God’ when you die. There is no assurance of salvation. And they are all strangely OK with this.
– The religion is based on being a good person, doing good things.
– Radical Muslims believe you should kill anyone who is not Muslim.
– They also believe in Jesus, but don’t believe He died on the cross, they believe that God just took Him up to heaven.
– Muslim people are afraid of God, wanting to go to heaven, and that is what typically drives their ‘faith’.
When you compare this to Christianity, it’s like night and day difference:
– No matter how many times a day you pray or how many good or bad things you do, if you ask for forgiveness of your sins (past, present and future), and accept Jesus into your heart as your Savior, you can be assured that you are going to heaven. (Because of what Jesus did when he died for all our sins on the cross, not because of anything you DO).
– Christianity is based on the blood of Jesus Christ covering all of our sins (because none of us are good enough to go to heaven to be with God without Him).
– Radical Christians give up their lives to tell others about the love and salvation that comes through Jesus.
– Jesus came into the world to show us how much God Loves us. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.” John 3:16
– Christian people usually realize how short we fall from the glory of God, how there is no way we can earn heaven on our own, just how much God really does love us and how much the whole world needs that love, and that’s what drives our faith.
