To the "Jama'at Al_Masih" menu

Rule Number One

THE MOST IMPORTANT COMMANDMENT

Of all the commands that God has given which would you say is the most important?

Some would say doing our duty to God and being totally submitted to Him is more important than any other obligation.

However when someone asked God's Messiah, Jesus, what is the most important commandment, he said that it was:

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind".1

Now duty is not the same as love. The Bible2 says:

"If I dish out all my goods to feed the poor and if I surrender my body to be burned but do not have love, I am not benefitted".3

A child could do his duty to his teacher and yet not love him. A man might fastidiously perform religious duties and help the poor and yet love neither God nor the poor. Duty alone is not enough. The terror of hell can cause a man to be religious. This is not love.

"There is no fear in love, perfect love casts out fear".4

OUR DILEMMA

It would be foolish for anyone to suggest that we do not need to love God or that some other consideration could be equal to our obligation to love God. We have to love God. This command was given through Moses.5 It has been repeated by the Lord Jesus,1 yet it is not referred to at all in the Qur'an. There it only offers an option; "If ye love Allah ... Allah will love you".6

Now how can we, who are tarnished with the guilt of our misdeeds, love the Almighty One? In terror we contemplate the day of judgement. Evidently we can approach God only if He Himself will condescend to help us. That is the dilemma we are in. Will the Almighty condescend to help us ?

GOOD NEWS - THE INJIL - AL-BASHARAH

According to the Bible, God himself has taken the initiative:

"This is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us".7

You see "God is love".8

The Almighty One is love !

May we remind those Muslim friends who think it is blasphemy to say that the Almighty God is love, that the Qur'an calls God "alwadud" - the loving one.9

Now we don't have to love God to make Him love us. He already loves us and we know that He loves us because He sent His Messiah to be the sacrifice qurbani....... for our sins.

"Indeed, we being without strength, at the right time, Christ ( i.e.the Messiah ) died for the impious, for hardly would anyone die for a just man; perhaps someone might even dare to die for a good man. But God advocates His love to us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us".10

This should constrain us to love Him!

THESE ARE THE FACTS

The prophet Isaiah foretold that the Messiah would die as a sacrifice for our sins approximately 700 years before it happened:

"Yet the Lord willed to crush Him; He caused Him to suffer, though you make His life a guilt offering".11

Approximately 1,000 years before Christ Jesus died, King David said that God would not allow His Holy one to see decay.12

If Jesus had not fulfilled these prophesies he would have been an imposter !

God's Messiah, Jesus,
is risen from the dead !

He has ascended into heaven !

He did sacrifice himself on the cross for you !

God does love you !

This is how He enables you to love Him:

"We love because He first loved us".13

Do not spurn His love!

NOW IT IS UP TO YOU

God's Messiah was willing to die and be buried for you. You must be willing to die to yourself for him and be buried by baptism into water, rising to walk in the new way of life.14 "Indeed dead to sin but in Christ Jesus living to God".15

NO TERROR OF THE JUDGEMENT

"Herein is love made perfect that we may have boldness in the day of judgement; because as He is so are we in this world".16

References:-
  1. Matt 22:36 - 40
  2. "wherein is guidance and light". (Qur'an 5:46-49)
  3. I Cor.13:3
  4. I John 4:18
  5. Deut.6:4-5
  6. Qur'an 2:195; 3:31
  7. I John 4:10
  8. I John 4:8
  9. Qur'an 11:90; 85:40
  10. Romans 5:6 - 8
  11. Isaiah 53:10
  12. Psalm 16:10
  13. I John 4:19
  14. Romans 6:4
  15. Romans 6:11
  16. I John 4:17

 Copyright 1988/1992/1996 Jama'at al Masih
 Quranic references are taken from:-
"The Meaning of the Glorious Qur'an", translated by Marmaduke Pickthall, Taj Company, Karachi.
NOTE:  Verse reference numbering in other publications of the Qur'an might differ a little.

  Enquiries To the beginning; To the "Jama'at Al_Masih" menu