This Is Who the Kingdom of God Starts With • Sermon on the Mount (Episod... youtu.be/s9246LGlngs?si=nPEo… via @YouTube

When I was Muslim, I thought God’s holiness meant He couldn’t be near sinners. We were so unworthy and Allah would be unlike anything in this world. So how could Jesus, if He were God, touch lepers? Eat with sinners? Let a sinful woman wash His feet? Then it hit me: When Jesus touched a leper, the leper didn’t make Jesus unclean. Jesus made the leper clean. Mark 1:41. Holiness didn’t retreat from the sin. He came right to it and overpowered it. I thought God’s holiness kept Him AWAY from people like me. But His holiness was so strong it could walk right into my mess and clean it instead of catching it. He didn’t avoid the unclean. He healed them by with relationship, intimacy, and touch. There’s a God who bleeds and weeps with us. And He says one thing… “Follow Me”

As an Ex-Muslim turned Christian apologist, here is how I handle almost every Muslim objection: Stop playing theological whack-a-mole with Islam. It will be fruitless. When I debate Muslims, I don’t start with the Trinity. I'm not starting with original sin. I'm not starting with "How can God have a Son?" I start with one question: Is the Bible the revelation of God, or not? Because every other debate comes after that. I believe in the Trinity because the Bible teaches it, I believe in original sin because the Bible teaches it and I believe Jesus is the Son of God because the Bible teaches it. Muslims believe the same about the Quran. They believe Islam because the Quran tells them to. That's the real issue that so many Christians miss. Why spend hours arguing doctrine when the deeper question is: Which book actually comes from God? If the Bible is historically reliable and divinely inspired, then most objections disappear before they even begin. You can debate theology forever, but if we're reading from different books with different authorities, we're never getting to the root of the issue. Settle the Book issue first. Then the conversation stops being an argument. It becomes a Bible study.

"You Christians worship a God-man." Yes. That's literally the Gospel. As a Muslim, I used to think that was the ultimate criticism. Now I think it's the most beautiful truth I've ever heard. Because Christianity doesn't teach that God stayed distant. It teaches that God came near. The One who created galaxies stepped into His own creation. Not to show off or dominate. Not to sit on a throne demanding more from us. But to suffer for us, to walk among us. To carry our grief, and bleed for us. To die for us. And to rise again. What finally changed my perspective was realizing that "Son of God" never meant God had a biological child. In the Jewish world, it meant sharing the same nature. The claim wasn't that God had a baby. The claim was that God revealed Himself. And honestly, that's where Islam lost me. Because I spent years believing God would never humble Himself enough to enter His creation. Then I realized that's exactly what makes Him glorious. Not that He stayed far away. That He came close. Close enough to touch lepers. Close enough to weep. Close enough to suffer. Close enough to die. So yes, Christians worship the God-man. Because no mere man could save us. And a god who remains forever distant cannot show us the depth of divine love. But Jesus did. Fully God, fully man and fully enough.

"If Jesus was God, why didn't He just say it?" I used to ask that as a Muslim. I thought I had Christians cornered. Then I actually read the Bible I was criticizing. And I realized I wasn't looking for evidence. I was looking for a specific sentence. But does God need your preferred wording to still be God? Because God said: "Before Abraham was, I AM." The Jews immediately picked up stones to kill Him. Why? Because they knew exactly what He was claiming. He wasn't just saying He existed before Abraham. He was identifying Himself with the "I AM" of Exodus 3:14. The divine name of Yahweh. And here's what wrecked me: The Quran calls Jesus the Messiah: The Word of God. A Spirit from God. Born of a virgin. Sinless and alive today. Returning to judge the world. Yet I'm supposed to believe He's just another basic prophet? No other prophet gets that description. Not Moses, David, Abraham or Muhammad. Then you open the Bible and Jesus forgives sins, accepts worship, claims authority over heaven and earth, and rises from the dead. So no, Jesus never walked around saying, "I'm God, worship Me" in the exact sentence structure I demanded. He did something far more powerful: He lived it, He proved it. And honestly, after reading the Scriptures for myself, the problem wasn't that Jesus wasn't clear. The problem was that I didn't want to hear Him.

When I was Muslim, this never made sense to me: How Muhammad reportedly received his first revelation. According to Sahih al-Bukhari, Muhammad was alone in a cave when a being appeared, grabbed him, squeezed him repeatedly, and commanded him to read. His reaction wasn't confidence. It was fear. He ran home terrified, convinced something supernatural had happened to him. And that's where the story gets interesting. His wife Khadijah took him to her cousin Waraqah, a Christian familiar with the Scriptures. After hearing the account, Waraqah reportedly identified it with the same source that came to Moses. Think about that. The Quran did not exist yet. The framework being used to interpret Muhammad's experience came from the earlier Scriptures. Then the revelations continued. The reports describe intense physical experiences: sweating, trembling, hearing sounds, and periods of distress. Whether you agree with Islam or not, these details raise important questions about the origin and nature of the experience. Because when you compare it to the biblical accounts, many prophets receive clear callings rooted in God's prior revelation. So the question becomes: How should any claimed revelation be tested? By emotion? By experience? Or by the Scriptures that came before it? For me, that question changed everything. Because one messenger points back to an empty tomb. The other points to a grave.  That distinction matters.

People are great ❤️

Cool!

Seems reasonable. I'm for it.

I have a lot of practicing Jewish friends who ask me: "How do you make a Muslim become a Christian? That's impossible." And my answer always surprises them: I don't start with Jesus. I start with the Torah. Because the same way you challenge Islam is the same way you challenge any tradition that places authority above the text itself. So I open the Torah and ask: What happened to blood atonement? What happened to Leviticus 17:11? What happened to the sacrifices, the temple, the covenant, the promise that life is in the blood? Then we talk about original sin. Adam didn't just make a mistake. Humanity completely fractured. Then we talk about theophanies. God walking, speaking, appearing and wrestling. It's all there in the text. And then I ask a simple question: Where did all of that go? Because the Torah says one thing, but later traditions often reinterpret it into something else. And that's where the conversation gets interesting. What is the final authority? The written revelation or the traditions built around it? Because it can't be both when they disagree. At that point we're no longer debating Christianity versus Judaism or Christianity versus Islam. We're asking a deeper question: Who has the authority to reinterpret God's revelation? And why? The more I strip everything back to the text itself, the more I see the same thing. The Torah does not point toward endless commentary. It points toward blood atonement. And ultimately toward Christ crucified. That conversation never gets old.

강아지들이 만든 리듬에 피아노 🥹 쟤들은 머하고 있는 거냐구 🤣

When I was Muslim, I used to ask Christians: “If Jesus was really God, why did He eat, sleep, and bleed like us?” And honestly, I used to ask it with pride like it was some unbeatable argument. But later I realized something: That question was not exposing Christianity. It was exposing my misunderstanding of what kind of God Jesus claimed to be. Because the real question is not: “Why would God become weak?” The real question is: “What kind of God would willingly step into human suffering at all?” Islam taught me about a God who was distant and untouchable. But Christianity introduced me to a God who stepped into hunger, exhaustion, grief, pain, betrayal, blood, and suffering with us. And suddenly His humanity stopped feeling like weakness to me. It became proof of love. If Jesus ate, it means He came close enough to experience hunger beside us. If He slept, it means He embraced the exhaustion we carry. If He bled, it means He did not stand above suffering watching us from a distance. He entered it Himself. Philippians 2 says Christ emptied Himself and took on flesh. Not because He stopped being God, but because He wanted humanity to finally see what God is actually like. And it turns out God is willing to suffer for the people He loves. That changed everything for me. Because every other religion demanded sacrifice from humanity. Jesus became the sacrifice Himself. And no prophet in history ever claimed that.

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Thought for the day; This is a hard one. “For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.” (Matthew 15:19) Evil people who inflict evil on other people will breed more evil and misery. Gangs can do this. Governments can do this. Your boss can do this. Your neighbor can do this. Your spouse, your friend, your sons... And you can do this. If you do something to stop evil is it oppression or is it more evil? If you leave people to commit evil oppressing others is it oppression or is it more evil? What to do about the problem of evil? It's a pickle. What we want: -Love instead of hate -Forgiveness instead of revenge -Humility instead of pride -Truth instead of lies But so many - don't know what love means - don't know what forgiveness means - don't know what humility means - don't know what the Truth is Jesus suggest evil is defeated first in the human heart through repentance, forgiveness, and union with Him Looks like Jesus had the Way, the Truth and Daily Life leads us toward solving for the problem of evil. Black pilled White

Stanley Cup Final. Vegas vs Carolina. Who ya got? 👀

Inspiring

I admit, I saw the first clip of this being promoted on the interwebs from a different angle and had a first impression. A good lesson to see every angle before jumping to a conclusion. Note to self.

Timeline cleanse

When your dad is a construction worker lol 😂

I have to admit, the "teaser", "wait for the next episode" thing has me doubting the seriousness of this freedom fighter. Don't get me wrong, I've been a fan of Massie but I have questions.

Grandma ma has super soothe powers. Right Zzzzz young hero 🤣