Devout Muslims

Today's local newspaper had an article byMuhammad Abdul Bari (pictured). He is Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain and he wrote: "Muslims living in Paris, London, and Berlin are more religious than the general public."

That would be true for New Zealand also. I have not met a Muslim man with whom I could not get into a discussion about religion. Many of them have shown signs of considerable devotion when we talked of prayers, sin and relating to God.

The New Testament shows us that God’s likes to bless devout people, like Simeon and Anna in the Temple (See Lk 2:25 37), like the devout men at Pentecost and like the devout household of Cornelius. (See Acts 2:5; 10:2)

Devout Muslims are coming to Jesus Christ through Christian friends and through visions of Jesus and through the example of Christian fellowship. I need to remind myself not to get side-tracked with discussions about the Trinity and the Incarnation but to go beyond the arguments to the intimacy with God that these doctrines indicate. Meeting up with Muslims can be a “blessed occasion” like it was for those devout people of the New Testament.