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“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” – 1 Corinthians 10:31

While studying the scripture recently, this verse really stuck out to me. “Whatever you do” includes everything. It does not say “some of what you do” or “most of what you do” it says “whatever you do”. Now how to do it “all for the glory of God.”

As I started thinking of “Whatever you do” and all it encompasses I had an idea to illustrate the impact of this. It may be something you would like to try with your family. There are a couple steps to do first.

Step One
Take a piece of paper and fold it in half top over bottom.

Step Two
Open the paper up and then fold the top half in half again. Now write the 1 Corinthians 10:31 verse on this part of the paper.

At this point you are ready to sit down with your wife, kids, friends or whoever you are going to do this exercise with.

Step Three
Turn the paper over so that the verse is folded over at the top. The people that you are doing this do not know what is written on the part that is folded over. Simply tell them that we are making a list of all the things that we do. Then collectively have them call out things that they do and write them on the blank page. The kids might include things like: play, go to school, do chores. Adults might include things like: work, shop, pay bills. Be as specific or as generic as you like. The important thing is to list as many things as you can. Include all aspects of your life. As you work on it the page may look something like this:

Step Four
When everyone is done listing the things they do then it is time to reveal the verse written at the top. Open up the page. Your page might look something like:

Now, read the verse. “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” – 1 Corinthians 10:31

Then talk about how we can do all these things to God’s glory. Take time to thank God for the ways that He is glorified in your life. If there are things on the list that do not glorify God, then talk about ways to remove those things from our lives.

I hope you find this helpful. If you do this exercise with your family or friends, please leave a comment to share how it went!

In Dallas, DART buses have ads on the side of them. Recently, one of the ads is for the Islam Hotline. A message says “Islam, Got Questions?, Get Answers!” There is a toll free phone number to call to ask your questions.So… I took down the number and decided to call.

First attempt
The first time I called. Ring. Ring. Ring. Disconnect. Hmmm. Technology failure, I guess.

Second attempt
Ring. Ring. Ring. Press one for English. 1. Thank you for calling the Islam Hotline. Please wait while your call is connected to the next available associate. Some funky sounds, etc. Disconnected. Hmmm. Technology failure again.

At this point, I am thinking, “hey this is ok, at least people can’t get ahold of anyone and hear any information.”

Third attempt
Ring. Ring. Ring. See Second attempt. Except this time the transfer connects to a voice mail system. So I leave a message with my name and number and ask for a return call. No return cal was ever received.

Fourth Attempt
I finally got through. I was speaking to a live associate! I said, “I got this number from a DART bus in Dallas and it said to call with questions.”

“yes”

So I asked, “If you die tonight are you assured that you would go to heaven?”

“no. I can only hope to”

“Really? So how do you get to heaven?”

“Believe in the Oneness of God who created everything including the prophets Moses, Jesus and Mohammed…. Then you might have salvation.” He said that believing in the oneness of god was enough for Allah to forgive my sin.

As I began to ask a few other questions, I was basically told that the Bible is corrupt, that Jesus is not God, etc. He even asked me if I thought that Jesus spoke in English. I pointed out that the Quran says to trust the scripture that came before it. I was called out on that and had to go look up the surah and quote it back to him. Each time I tried to say anything I was interrupted, treated rudely and told that I was not listening when in fact it was the man on the other end of the phone that would not listen to anything I was asking. He continued to speak over me, answer questions before I even finished speaking. In short, I could not get a word in edge wise. I eventually found the Surah that says that he should trust the Bible but again he interrupted and spoke over me. I pointed out that Jesus claims to be God, but he denied it. He denied the Bible was from God. When I pointed out that the Bible claims to be from God he said “show me the verse in the synoptic Gospels that says that and I will become a Christian.” When I told him that the verse is in the New Testament, but not in the synoptic Gospels then he refused to listen to me. I pointed out tha the was breaking the second commandment by creating a God to suit his own purpose because he said that his god would put this in the synoptic Gospels.

At that point, I tried to take him to the Good Person test by asking, “Do you consider yourself to be a good person?” Instead of answering he quoted something to me in Arabic. I told him that that was offensive because I had no idea if he was cursing at me in Arabic or something. Instead of apologizing to me, he tried to justify his actions and tell me what he has said.

He then tried to invite me to trust Allah. I told him that since Allah is Satan that I would not do that. He rebuked me again in Arabic. So I repeated the words of Christ to him, “unless you repent, you too will all perish.” (Luke 13:3)

At this point he hung up on me.

WOW!

I was shocked. Answers? What answers? Certainly none are available here. The hostility that I received would certainly not encourage me to seek further. The man was rude and interrupted every time I tried to ask any question. Plus, he does not have any real answer for the question that everyone must deal with, “what happens when I die?” Perhaps or maybe Allah will forgive? What kind of answer is that?

The Answer is found in the Bible!
The Bible says it is appointed once for man to die and then face judgment based on the Ten Commandments. Ever told a lie? Stolen anything? Used God’s name as a curse word? Looked with lust? Jesus calls that adultery. If God judges you by these standards will you be innocent or guilty? If you are honest, you will agree you are guilty and deserving of Hell. “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23)

God does not want you to go to hell. He sent his son Jesus to live a perfect life, fulfill the law, die on the cross raise from the dead and to pay for the sin of the whole world. Your fine has been paid in full. The Bible says that if you will repent (turn away from) of your sin and trust in Jesus then you will have eternal life!

You can read further about the Gospel on our website.

Islam is not the answer. Islam hot line does not have the answer. The answer is Jesus!

Only the Bible has the answer for this question. Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

Why is this such a big deal? I invite you to watch the video What Islam is Not to see where this leads.

Please repent and trust Jesus. Then go and make disciples of Christ. (Matthew 28:18-20)

Now it is your turn. There are lot’s of questions to be asked on the Islam hot line. Why not give them a call? Ask your questions. Then share the Gospel with them. Here are a few questions I can think of:

• Is Islam peacful?
• What about all the terrorism we hear about in the news?
• Is Osama Bin Laden a Muslim? Will he go to heaven/
• What evidence is there that the Quran is true? We have historical, archeological, prophetic and scientific evidence of the Bible. What do they have?

If you call and ask any of these questions or some questions of your own, then please post a comment and let me know how the conversation goes and what they say. Be sure to leave them with the Gospel!

While witnessing, I sometimes come across people who claim that the Trinity is not taught in the Bible and instead it was added by Christians later after the Bible was written. While, the term “trinity” does not appear in the Bible, the concept is clearly taught. I’ll point out that in the creation account, God gave man the authority to name things, so actually, man coming up with the term Trinity is fine.

How many human races are there? One!

How many humans are there? About 6 Billion living and billions more have lived.

In a similar way, there is one God and three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

So where does this teaching come from? Look no further than the first chapter of the first book of the Bible. Genesis 1:1-3 states:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

In this passage, “God created” is the Father. We then see the “Spirit of God” or the Holy Spirit was hovering over the waters. Finally, we see that “God said”. This is Jesus! What? Look at John 1:1

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Here we see several things about Jesus. First, He has always existed. He is eternal. He existed in the beginning. Second, Jesus is the Word. So now we know that when God speaks, that is Jesus.

So there you have it, Genesis 1:1-3 shows Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Reading on in the Genesis creation account in chapter 1 verse 26, we again see that God is multiple persons:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

God refers to Himself in the plural (our).

Finally, look to the New Testament. When Jesus is baptized. We see Jesus in the flesh, the Holy Spirit represented by a dove and the voice of the Father. Matthew 1:16-17 states:

As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

So there you have it. The Trinity! God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit!

I hope and pray that this material is helpful in equipping you to share the truth of God’s Word with those that you meet.

For further study, I encourage you to check out the diagram and support information at
http://www.answeringlds.org/index.html?ChristianityTrinDiag.html

A few months ago I attended a class called Islam 101 at a local Mosque. The purpose of attending was to get a first hand understanding of Islam – “straight from the horses mouth”, so to speak. It was a good experience. I learned a lot about the religion. I also meet a few friends, had a chance to share the Gospel with a number of Muslims at the mosque and have a couple of ongoing relationships from the class.

One of the guys I meet there recently sent me a link to a YouTube video called “Top Ten reasons that Jesus is not God.” I watched that video and have been having a dialog with him for the last several weeks about it. Before I get to the main point, though, I’d like to point out that the top reason that Jesus can not be God for many people, including Muslims, is that if Jesus is God, then they must submit to Him. The Bible says that ultimately, every knee will bow. But John 3:19 is clear that men love their sin more than the savior. Sadly, God’s wrath will remain on them when they die (John 3:36).

After having a discussion for a couple of weeks, my friend has pointed out what many Muslims believe… that the Bible has changed!

However, this brings up the age old questions, “if the Bible has changed”, then:

• who changed it?
• how did they change it? There are over 20,000 original manuscripts. How did they all get changed?
• why did they change it?

Muslims that I have talked too have never been able to answer any of these questions. The base thier trust in the Quran which contradicts the Bible on several points: the divinity of Christ and original sin nature of man to name a couple.

With these things in mind, recently I started reading the book of Romans. As I read, I thought to myself, if the Muslims are right then which verses would have had to be changed? Let’s just take one section of Romans 3 (from the NIV):

²¹But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. ²²This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, ²³for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. ²⁵God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— ²⁶he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

²⁷Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. ²⁸For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law. ²⁹Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, ³⁰since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. ³¹Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.

If we assume like the Muslims do that Christ is not divine, did not die for the atonement of sin, did not rise from the dead, etc, then what verses would be left unchanged? I don’t think any of these verses would remain. But, this is not the only section of scripture that would have to change. Look at 1 John 2:21-22, “Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist—he denies the Father and the Son. ²³No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.” Obviously, these verses would have had to change as well. Now one might argue that these were written around the same time and the authors were in cohoots with each other. So then consider the prophecy about Christ in Isaiah 9:6:

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

The prophet has spoken. Jesus will be God with us!

Christians have the Bible and the Bible is the innerant word of God. Anything that contradicts the truth must be false. Therefore, the Quran must be false along with any other book that contradicts the Bible!

The implications for this are huge. Since the Bible is true, Jesus is truly God, not merely a prophet as the Quran teaches. In addition, man is born into sin, not born without sin as the Quran teaches. That means that all mankind needs a savior. The one and only savior is Jesus Christ.

“For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men—the testimony given in its proper time.” 1 Timothy 2:5-6

I hope this is useful when witnessing to your Muslim friends.

For additional reference, I recommend Tim Brown’s blog entries (Part 1 and Part 2) on this subject.