More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
April 16 - April 16, 2023
“God is not forcing ‘some random person’ to suffer for our sins. He is paying for our sins Himself.”
“We are the son, and God is the father. We have incurred a debt against God, and we can’t pay Him back. So in His mercy, He pays our sins for us. The wages of our sin is death, and He died on our behalf, balancing the accounts.”
“Okay, David, I think I get what you’re saying. Since our sins are against God, God has the right to forgive us. And if Jesus is God, then Jesus can pay for our sins.” David considered this. “Yeah, I guess you can put it that way.” I wasn’t convinced. “But that still doesn’t explain how one person can pay for all the sins of mankind.” “Nabeel, you’re still forgetting that this isn’t just any person. This is God! This was not like paying off trillions of dollars of debt with one dollar. This was paying trillions of dollars of debt with an infinite bank account! God’s life is worth more than all
...more
Romans 6:23.”
Muslims believe that salvation is a matter of doing more good deeds than bad, I never really felt anguish over my sins because I believed myself to be on the positive side of the scales.
David smiled reassuringly. “Only the grace of God.” “But why would He give me His grace?” “Because He loves you.” “Why would He love me, a sinner?” “Because He’s your Father.”
this was Sahih Bukhari, the most trustworthy book of hadith.
It should not be assumed that the Quran is the Islamic analogue of the Bible.
Imagine my incredulity when I discovered an answer to the Quran’s challenge, Al-Furqan al-Haqq.
I was not the only one to consider Al-Furqan al-Haqq dangerous.
Bucailleism: The technique of referring to the Quran for miraculously advanced scientific truths in order to defend its divine origin
Thus, the preservation of the Quran undergirds the unparalleled confidence of the modern Muslim zeitgeist.
They were arguing that Allah intended all the many changes that came to it. That was a defensive position at best, not one that could bear the weight of the entire Islamic case.
Not only was David right about the meaning of “those whom their right hands possess” but the truth was
inescapable. It was in the Quran, in Sahih Bukhari, in Sahih Muslim, in Sunan Abu Daud, in commentaries;
would not allow myself to despise them, but I could find no way to excuse them either. So I was done. I was done fighting.
Shirk is specifically discussed in the context of Jesus in 5:72. He who believes Jesus is God, “Allah has forbidden Heaven for him, and his abode will be the Hellfire.”
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it” (Mark 8:34 – 35).
I AM NEAR, SEEK AND YOU SHALL FIND
If Allah confirmed to me personally that He was actually the God of the Bible, I would accept Him, Jesus, as my Lord.
Asking for more, he told me to read Luke 13:22.
continued reading fervently. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness? Not ‘blessed are the righteous’ but ‘blessed are
those who hunger and thirst for righteousness’? I hunger and thirst for righteousness, I do, but I can never attain it. God will bless me anyway? Who is this God who loves me so much, even in my failures?”
poring
Nothing compares to the one true God.
Matthew 10:32 – 33:
“Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.”
It was not that Jesus was turning me against my parents. It was that, if my family stood against God, I had to choose one or the other. God is obviously best, even if that
caused me to turn against my family.
“Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” To be a Christian means suffering real pain for the sake of God.
“whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”
“You are My child. I love you.”
God knew full well that the hands He gave to this man would be used to sin against Him, that the feet He gave to this man would be used to walk away from Him. Yet, instead of withholding these gifts, He gave him the most precious gift of all: His own Son.
This is not about me. It is about Him and His love for His children.
Yes, it is painful and potentially dangerous, but that is where the Holy Spirit meets us and shapes us into the image of Jesus, our suffering Lord.
The good news is that God Himself loves us enough to enter into the world and suffer for us, that despite humanity’s inability to save itself, God saved us.
He did not send someone else to do His dirty work. He rescued us Himself. No one else could do it. That is the beauty of the gospel; it is all about God and what He has done out of His love for us.
The expectation of Christian suffering is exactly why we have Scriptures like Philippians 4:6 – 7, Luke 18:1 – 8, and Matthew 6:25 – 34, and in my first year as a Christian, I immersed myself in those verses for comfort.
The greatest lesson I learned in that time is that suffering binds us closer to Jesus and opens us to the tangible presence of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, more than anything else.
So, You Want to Be Like Christ?
Written by Chuck Swindoll -- focusing on spiritual discipline, living according to the manner of Jesus.
That, at least, is what 1 Peter 3:15 tells Christians to do.
But while the cost of obedience to the Lord can be high, it will always result in fruitfulness.
Matthew 5 where it says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
