[S I M T A N]

I accept the son of Mary, Jesus, peace be upon him. I accept him 100%. No Muslim is a Muslim if he rejects Jesus.

I am more like his follower than you are, even though I am not his follower.

1. I pray to the almighty God like how Jesus did. You don't.
2. I believe in one almighty God with no partners and so do Jesus. You believe in 3 persons God, a foreign god.
3. I believe in obedience to the Law like Jesus. You have discarded the Law.
4. I go to the temple in the early morning like Jesus did. I'm sure you don't.
5. I am circumcised like how Jesus was circumcised. Likely, you are not.
6. I don't eat pork like Jesus. Likely, you consume pork.

As you can see from that, I accept Jesus more than you. What say you SimTan?

"You, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it." (Colossians 2:13-15)

What was the written code, or the handwriting of requirements, with its regulations? The law. In the book of Galatians, we learn that after the Christians  in Galatia had lost sight of the cross, they went back to abiding by the law (or at least trying to). Paul asked them, "How can you be so stupid? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? (Gal 3:3)

This is what happens to Christians who began in the Spirit, lost sight of the cross, cease to believe in the supernatural, and return to a system of rules and regulations, in the way Moslems have been doing. Sometimes rule-abiders have the tendency to make things complicated. They consider themselves righteous when they keep those rules, condemning others who do not keep them. I call them the Fundamentalists or Spirituals.

Fastidious about correct doctrine, they're eager to dot every "i" and cross every "t" if it means having the right answers. They're early risers, going on their knees before God, and can spout countless passages from memory. While these practices are positive, they can't impart righteousness. Rising early to pray is good as long as you don't do it based on a feeling of obligation, or on the idea that it will make you righteous. They may fall into trying to please God or win His love by doing good works or working their way into right standing with Him.

Needless to say, salvation isn't based on what we do but on what Jesus did for us and whether we accept it. The Bible says in order to enter the kingdom of heaven we must be born again. When we talk about the door of salvation, we're talking about Jesus providing us with the new birth and the remission of sin. God's grace through Christ alone grants us righteousness; we can neither earn nor deserve it. God will judge neither our religious denominations nor our doctrines but our righteousness. The Man whom God raised from the dead is none other than Jesus Christ, who is both our standard and our judge. God has no standard besides Jesus, and if we measure ourselves according to another standard, we deceive ourselves. Acceptance is the basis of our righteousness in Christ, and we receive acceptance not through works or rules, but from God in faith.