Recently I stumbled upon some websites and videos about Islam.  In particular there were some instructions about how to become a Muslim and advice about what to do as a new convert to Islam.  I am fairly ignorant about Islam and the contents of the Koran so I was interested to hear what these Muslims had to say.  Christianity and Islam have a lot in common.  For example on the videos there was a lot of talk about God.  We must worship the true God, who is one God, and stay away from idols.  It is important to be obedient to God.  Islam also has similar things to say about living life.  Muslims must pray since this is the way to have relationship with God.  They must read the Koran since it is God’s spoken word.  Muslims should learn about their faith.  Faith involves doing something.  If you don’t act then you don’t really have faith.  Stay away from worldliness.  If you do these things you will experience personal peace.  Muslims have an equivalent to the sinner’s prayer in order to become a Muslim – “There is no God but Allah and Mohammad is his prophet”.  Islam is even concerned with apologetics.  They argued that there are rational proofs for God and there are miracles in the Koran.[1]

While listening to these videos about Islam I thought that much that was said there might be said in a church on Sunday, almost without having to change a word.  I am NOT trying to make some apologetic point or claim that Islam is like Christianity.  The point is that we cannot simply talk about God in some kind of generic way, because Muslims, Mormons, Hindus etc all speak of god.  Christians are not simply people who worship a god.  Many people worship a god.  Christians are people who worship a very specific God.  The Bible is clear that we must go further than simply talking about God.  Paul tells us:

“For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth– as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”– yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (1 Cor. 8:5-6).

So if we cannot speak about a generic god, what does the Bible say about the God we worship?  The God who we worship is distinguished in several ways in the New Testament.  Firstly, he is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 15:6; 2 Cor 1:3; Eph 1:3, 17; Col 1:3; 1 Pet 1:3).  He is the God who raised Jesus from the dead (Acts 2:32, 4:10; Rom 10:9; Gal 1:1).  He is the God who has reconciled people to himself through Christ (Rom 5:10; 2 Cor 5:18-20; Eph 2:14-16).  These statements have something in common, that is, the God whom we worship is distinguished by the fact that he is revealed through Jesus Christ.  In fact the Muslims know that the difference between their God and ours is Jesus.  Islam claims that God has no son, so Jesus cannot be the Son of God.[2]

When God took human form in Christ this offended the religious people of the first century so much that they crucified him.  I wonder if in fact the fact that God is revealed in the person of Christ also offends us.  I ask this question because I hear a lot of talk about God in churches and among Christians, but much less talk about Jesus.  Since Jesus is what makes the Christian faith actually Christian, we must ask why it is that Christians don’t speak about Jesus.  I think that the reason that God gets mentioned and not Jesus is that we are actually quite guilty of doing what I will call constructing our own god.

A generic god is so much easier to live with than one who says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”  A generic god is someone we can manipulate to our own desires.  We can say anything we like about a generic god.  But the more that god becomes specified, the more that god becomes like the God of the Bible, the God revealed in Jesus, the more we must die to ourselves and yield to his will.  Jesus is grace embodied, but he also requires something of us.  Jesus is Lord.  He demands our obedience.  He demands that we abandon our happy religiosity and become his disciples.  This is difficult because we do not want to die to ourselves and live for him.  We are by nature rebellious people.  Just as Israel built a golden calf after they were delivered out of Egypt, we have been rescued from sin and death and yet are happy to build and idol to be our god.  Of this we must repent.  Let’s stop putting Jesus on the periphery of our Christianity and put him back at the centre where he belongs.