I have been receiving some 'AF Dispatch' for years. Most times I don't read them as there are just too much to go through these days. Occasionally I am blessed to bother and today is one of those moments :-)
AF Dispatch took this article "Can a Muslim be God's Voice to Me?" from Christianity Today. I learned about it from Philip Yancey and sometime later found out that Billy Graham had founded it many years back.
I have been cogitating and sometimes talking about Christ is always new wine, always upsetting the apple cart. I blogged about that too earlier. If you are the typical regular church goer, you are not likely to be presented with such a Christ despite the overwhelming evidence from the Gospels that it was typical of him. I am thankful to Tony Kriz for collecting many of these examples in his article for Christianity Today.
Actually I have always know him as the irrepressible maverick but while still in church I had managed to ignore that. Eventually he caught up with me and I couldn't run away but he let the rest escaped. It is good to be caught. Paradoxically his preferred way of catching people seems to be to stand at the door and wait!
The first perplexing crisis (new wine) after Pentecost was the vision which led Peter to visit Cornelius. Church history is dotted with equivalents.
I still seen clearly in my mind's eye how God spoke to Mother Teresa through a sadhu. Therefore this article, "Can a Muslim Be God's Voice to Me?" is me leaning on a superior writer what I would have wanted for myself.
It is indeed a marvel how we can learn much from someone outside our faith. God delivers through the most unlikely messenger. Just because one happens to be born into a certain religious setting, say raised a Christian, I think it will indeed be a waste of one's life not to be able to interact with people of other faiths (or even no official branding of faith) and learn something from them. I (thankful to be raised in Christian values and learn to live to discern between good and evil) remember once a Muslim friend of mine said this to me - "If (you) have been born in a Muslim family, you would have been a good practising Muslim" I probably would have said likewise to him because I enjoy his company, he being someone who practises his faith fervently while having a great tolerance and respect for others as well. How sad when we hold blindly and narrowly to our own creed (and in some quarters, really just what a pastor is telling you) and miss God as He passes by
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