When Joshua was near the town of Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with sword in hand. Joshua went up to him and demanded, “Are you friend or foe?” “Neither one,” he replied. “I am the commander of the Lord’s army.” At this, Joshua fell with his face to the ground in reverence. “I am at your command,” Joshua said. “What do you want your servant to do?” (Joshua 5:13-14)
Read: Joshua 5:1-7:15, Luke 15:1-32, Psalm 81:1-16, Proverbs 13:1
Relate: The Calvanist says, “God is sovereign. He is on my side.” The Arminianist replies, “No, He has given us free will. He is on my side.” The republican says, “God demands holiness, He is on my side.” The democrat says, “No, He loves the poor, He is on my side.” The Methodist and the Presbyterian argue their point. The Catholic and the protestant duke it out. The baptist and the pentecostal go at it. The Muslim fundamentalist says God is on his side. The Jewish fundamentalist says the same, as does the Christian fundamentalist. The Hindu fundamentalist says all the gods are on his side. The atheist looks at the whole crowd arguing and says, “Thank you all for proving my point.”
React: The question has never been, “Is God for me or for my enemy?” All that question proves is that we have created a box and fashioned a god in our image that we want to make sure fits inside it. The question is too egocentric. The answer is yes. God is for me. He is also for my enemy. He is also for my friends, and my acquaintances, and for the people I have never even met. When I ask that question what I am saying is, “I have fashioned this box for You, God… now fit in it.” That sounds kinda dangerous… you think?
It is time for me to get away from egocentric questions. Instead of, “Is God for me?” It should be, “Am I for God?” Instead of trying to fashion an adequate box to hold what I believe of God, I should be trying to shape my life to be an adequate vessel that already has the living God in me. God is the center, not me, and I have to do everything I can to wrap everything else I know around that fact. God leads, not me, and I have to do everything I can to make sure I am on His side. He is far too great for any box I can make or even imagine.
Respond:
Dear God,
You are far greater than I could ever fathom. Help me to take my eyes off of myself and keep them on You. Help me to focus more and more on who You are rather than trying to fit You into what I would like You to be. Bust down my boxes. You are Holy, Wonderful, Marvelous, Glorious, Omnipotent, Righteous and Mighty. Let me find myself lining up on Your side.
Amen
THE RIVER WALK 
Reblogged this on Godly aliens and commented:
I love this, so I am sharing it with you. Enjoy!
First and most important thing is authenticity. 2nd, translations are NEVER to original! 3rd languages cgange with time. Not all human beings can together stop these changes, languages die and new are born. 4) of course only God alone can stop dusting and rusting of a language and keep it fresh! In the entire world only and only Quran passes this test and it’s word by word God’s direct conversation to the man. Quran being final has preserved the lives and messages of all previous messengers like Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon, Moses and Jesus (Peace be upon them). Quran is the only book in which there is no doubt and its a guide for those who want to avoid evil and wrong doings!. Please do the greatest favor to yourself! pick up Quran and study. It will take you on most confident straight path to success!
There is a common game children play all around the world. In America they call it telephone. In Turkey they have a similar game called ear to ear. In this game one child whispers a short story into the ear of another child. That child then whispers it to the next and so on down the line. When the last child has heard the story they share out loud what they have heard. It can be quite humorous how different the end result is from the original. Almost always, the story has been shortened, usually parts are now missing, and often it is completely changed.
When I read the stories of people like Noah, Moses, David and Abraham in the Quran, it is like reading the end result of a game of telephone. Their stories have been shortened, parts are missing, and almost always they are now completely distorted from the original. The only person’s story in the Quran that has a beginning middle and end is Joseph and even his is abbreviated and warped almost beyond recognition. The authenticity and veracity of the Quran is far, far below the Torah and the Incil in this regard. It isn’t even close.
The Incil, the New Testament of the Bible was written within the same generation as the events in which it talks about. It was also written with the intent of mass reproduction and dissemination over a vast geographical area. Because of this, we can be confident that what we have today has not changed from the original. There were far too many copies distributed over a vast amount of land and nobody would have been able to make changes because they could never get their hands on nearly enough of the originals to make a serious impact. This is in stark contrast to the Quran. Nothing was written down until hundreds of years after Muhammad supposedly first uttered his words. There were only four different men who collected and wrote down the sayings passed on, ear to ear like a game of telephone, from one generation to the next. Those men could not even agree on the number of chapters for their book. Beyond that the ruler at that time, Umar, had ultimate editing control and could edit out anything that did not line up with his (warlike, militaristic, authoritarian) version of what Islam should be. When it comes to historical veracity the Quran is once again far, far inferior to the Bible.
Even this concept that everything should remain static in one language is a means of deception and control. For a time the Catholic church tried to force everyone to only read and worship in Latin. They did this as a means to try and control information and maintain power. this is the same reason why the Quran was first mandated to only to be read and recited in Arabic. As their empire rapidly grew they needed a way to unify and control their conquered peoples. As a result, even today most Muslims do not know what the Quran says and even when they are reciting their prayers, they do not know the words behind the sounds they make. This to me shows that the idea of God you worship is too small. The God I serve, the One True God, is big enough and smart enough to understand more than one language. He is also loving enough to care about all His children that they might also be able to worship Him in truth and understanding. I remember sharing with a Muslim friend. I watched him pray and then he shared the meaning behind it. He was able to tell me why he faces where he does, why he kneels as he does, and the purpose behind the motions of his prayer. But he did not know the meaning behind anything he was saying. He was then blown away when we prayed the Lords prayer together. Not only was I able to recite the prayer in English but line by line I could explain what the prayer meant and why it was important. This level of understanding was completely foreign to him and I could only grieve that he is held in a religion that binds him up in ignorance. In this way, once again, the Quran is far far inferior to the Bible.
The Quran is comppletely full of doubts. I doubt that it was ever intended to be used the way it is. I doubt it is even the same book as was originally collected. I doubt it has any understanding of a loving God when 84 of the 114 surah’s talk about how much he hates. I doubt most Muslims have any idea what it really says or they would no longer remain Muslims. I doubt it can have any true regard for the truth when the Quran itself says, “Allah is the greatest of deceivers.”
Wow! I love well-researched answers to other readers. I knew a man and his wife that left the Muslim faith for Christianity. He said he felt hopeless until he found Christ. Thank you for this blog.
Your understanding of Quran and Islam is appalling. Not only this your understanding of even bible is equally hilarious. This is the month of Ramadan. You may visit almost any masjid throughout the world and you can see how Quran was preserved from Day one. As the Quran revealed it was immediately memorized by heart and became essential part of regular five times a day. Muhammad pbuh who could not read or write was gifted by the God to immediately memorize it automatically. He used to lead the prayers and recited the Quran! Most companions also memorized. It was also put to the pen immediately through dictation on leather etc. paper was invented after a few years and it was put on paper in the most scientific manner. Four copies were made, some of which are still available in some museums. Translations can never be close to original. You give one big paragraph to 10 different people and check the difference yourself. Quran is the living miracle it is the only book in its original language and still it is as fresh as in day one. Any honest person will admit this. Christians today are not following Jesus but rather Jesus’s worst enemy Paul who shrewdly invented personality worship of Jesus to kill his very message. Barnabas was deceived by him in good faith but regretted all his life. Jesus’s maternal cousin James and other disciples rejected Paul. Paul invented trinity. Later followers of trinity massacred Unitarian Christians; details of that can be seen in Ahmad Thompson’s book “Blood on the cross”! Quran is a living miracle and being the final divine book Allah has protected it word by word and fresh frozen Quranic Arabic which is humanly not possible. Yes Allah deceived evil. They plan and Allah plans and Allah is the best planner! His corona virus with a cumulative weight of only 1 gram has shaken the entire world! It’s time to repent! You can’t win against truth. Falsehood can’t survive a strike from truth! Truth smashes the head of falsehood and it’s brain comes out! I request you to be honest and study Quran with unbiased heart; that will be best thing you did for yourself ever!
When you say, “Falsehood can’t survive a strike from truth” you are right. Unfortunately, that is about the only thing you are right about. So let’s go and strike truth against the many falsehoods in your comment…
1) The Quran was preserved from day one.
This is a lie. According to Muslim sources, it has gone through many changes over time.
https://kingdomscollide.org/2020/05/12/destroying-the-myth-of-perfect-preservation/
2) Muhammad could not read or write was gifted by God to immediately memorize it automatically.
According to Muslim sources, he also could not tell the differences between messages from God and from Satan and “mistakenly” delivered messages from Satan as though from God. According to Hebrew sources, he is, therefore, a false prophet who does not deserve to live.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIMUhpZjcm4
3) The Quran was also put to the pen immediately through dictation on leather.
Ignoring the fact that paper was invented loooong before the birth and life of Muhammad, your claim that it was put to writing immediately is patently false. According to Muslim mythology, the Quran was revealed 610-632AD and it was not written down until 652AD. According to historical facts, this is at least 100 years before the Quran as we now know it was compiled, but even if you were to believe the Muslim mythology, there is a 20-year gap from the end of the revelation of the Quran to the writing of it.
4) Quran is the living miracle it is the only book in its original language and still it is as fresh as in day one.
I have written a book. It was published in English and it is still available in English in the exact same words in which I first wrote it. Millions of other books still exist in the same languages as they were first written as fresh as the day they were penned. That is no miracle. This is not true for the Quran, there were many changes (see the link to point one) but even if it were so, this is no miracle.
5) Christians today are not following Jesus but rather Jesus’s worst enemy Paul who shrewdly invented personality worship of Jesus to kill his very message.
Any serious look at the teachings of Jesus in the gospels would blast this theory out of the water. The first link is a one hour talk on how Jesus’ message was essentially the same as Paul’s. The second link is something I personally wrote demonstrating incontrovertibly that Jesus knew that he was God.
https://kingdomscollide.org/2017/08/17/cross-examination-1-did-jesus-claim-to-be-god/
6) Barnabas was deceived by him in good faith but regretted all his life.
??? Sources, please? Can you please show me where in the Bible you got this from? This should be interesting.
7) They plan and Allah plans and Allah is the best planner! His coronavirus with a cumulative weight of only 1 gram has shaken the entire world!
Did you know that Muhammad himself did not even believe that there were contagious diseases? To be fair, though, Muhammad did have an ingenious idea for ending coronavirus.
One last thing, you mentioned that it is the month of Ramadan. I know. I live in a Muslim country. I also personally know three individuals who have abandoned Islam and embraced the truth this fasting season. During Ramadan, Muslims apostatize in record numbers. You should join them. Check out the Ramadan Apostate Marathon…
It’s useless to talk to a person as ignorant you are and who builds his case purely on crooked sources. The prayers were introduced from the very beginning and reciting Quran is essential component! If imam makes a single mistake it is immediate corrected from someone in the congregation prayer. Paper was not known or not available in Madina. It was brought in the time of Uthman and immediately written on it and four copies were made, still available in Istanbul and Taskand Museums.
You may write a book but after two three hundred years it will be difficult I understand as language undergoes so many changes with time. Quran is preserved over 1450 years that is a living miracle! It was a miracle then, now and till day of Judgement. One may find all kind of arguments and there will always be “sources” available. If Allah does not guide someone no one can guide him. If there are 3 persons who left Islam what about thousands who revert to Islam every year. You please keep your way, I will keep mine
You responded to my last comment just minutes after I posted it. That was not enough time to even have a cursory glance at the links I shared and offer an intelligent reply to them. I was hoping that you might look through them and offer up a rational response, but I guess intelligence and rationality are too much to hope for the follower of a religion whose greatest philosophical work, The Incoherence of the Philosophers, set the path for nine centuries of anti-intellectualism.
Instead, without even examining them, you carte blanche called the links, “crooked sources”. Let’s examine just one of those so you can see what sources you are calling “crooked”. The video under the title “destroying the myth of perfect preservation” begins with a quote from Abu Bakr found in Al-Bukhari’s collection of hadiths. in this quote, Abu Bakr said to Umar that trying to collect all the various sayings of Muhammad into one book (the Quran) would be more difficult than “moving a mountain from one place to another.” Who is the corrupted source here? Is it Abu-Bakr? Is it Al-Bukhari? Is it Muhammad himself who apparently said so many different and contradictory things? Is it the people who wrote down these sayings on tree stalks, pieces of leather, and stone? Who is the corrupted source?
Moving on, later in Al-Bukhari Hafsa is pointing out to Uthman that there are multiple variants of the Quran floating around. Uthman orders him to harmonize these differences, send it out to every Muslim province, and then have the other variations burned. Who is the corrupted source here? Al-Bukhari who wrote it? Hafsa harmonized the manuscripts? Umar who ordered it done and the other copies burned? These are Muslim sources and yet you are calling them corrupt.
Moving further on, various tafseer point out that Surah 33 once had more than 200 verses. It is said to have the same number as Surah 2. Yet today Surah 2 has 286 verses and 33 has only 73. What happened to these extra verses? Did a sheep eat them? Are Rum Al-Mani, Qurtubi, Ibn Abi Maryam, and the others who pointed out these differences corrupt in claiming so? These are Muslim sources you claim to be corrupt.
And still further… during the time of Abdul Malik, Al-Hajjaj brags about changing Ibn-Mas’ud’s reading of the Quran. This is in direct contradiction to Muhammad’s command that Ibn Masud’s recitation was one of the four people who supposedly got it right. We do not know all the changes Al-Hajjaj made since, once again, the variant copies were burned but we do know that he was the first one to add vowels and diacritical marks. Al-Kindi also adds that there were many things taken out at this time. So much for perfect preservation.
This is just one small portion of one video. As you can see, it is loaded with quotes from Islam’s most trusted sources, and yet you say I am using “crooked sources.” Yes, I do agree. Anyone who would willingly follow a murderous pedophile bandit king would be considered crooked in my opinion, but I did not think you would also consider these early followers of Islam crooked. So instead of completely ignoring the links that are filled with historical fact and direct quotes from Muslim sources, could you please look at them, address the concerns they raise, and then present a rational counterfactual argument? Or better yet, join the many thousands who are abandoning this false religion during the Ramadan season.
You were complaining about the “sources” KC was using as being corrupt. This is a video by Dr Shabir Ally, one of the foremost Muslim scholars who speaks and teaches in English. It just came out a few days ago and is all about the imperfect transmission of the Quran and its many variations. I would be interested in your take on it.
The river can’t take all dirt, but the ocean can take all rivers 🙂
Thanks for sharing, dear friend
Didi
Amen 🙏🏾
Thank you. Amen. This speaks my mind. ❤
Reblogged this on Shiny Thoughts and commented:
Perspective makes all the difference. It’s not about me. It’s about Him.
Amen. Exactly. How can we finite folks even think that the God of the universe would squeeze Himself into our tiny single-minded boxes! Guilty, I confess, for a very long time of my tiny box god. No more. He is too vast, too holy, too all-encompassing. So grateful. Well said. Thank you.
Very well done!
A very poignant post. Thanks for sharing! Hayley 😊
Well thought and received. Thank you.
Spot on! ❤
Reblogged this on ChristianBlessings and commented:
With eyes right, you will be all right!
Loved your song choice. Thank you.
Amen!!! Yes Lord, “You are Holy, Wonderful, Marvelous, Glorious, Omnipotent, Righteous and Mighty. Let me find myself lining up on Your side. Amen”
Amen Brother – Jesus is the Only Answer
You have expressed the feeling of so many. If it were not for the ability to love unconditionally there would be a great feeling of frustration in those many.
Very well said! JB Phillips discusses this same topic in a chapter of his wonderful book, ‘Your God is Too Small.’ If you haven’t already read it put it on your bucket list!
I love the truth you capture here; so good! I do think that there is power in our perspectives though. The Calvinist and the Arminianist and the Catholic all bring insight into God’s personality and nature. We can never fully escape our boxes, but when we learn that God is in every box to some degree, we can discover more of him than we ever imagined in places we never thought possible. 🙂
Well said!!
Amen my friends, Let God be above all! Let us seek a God of love, care, helping and sharing, and not one of hate! Let us embrace worshippers and teachers who are willing to suffer themselves to ease the suffering of others instead of inflicting it!