What’s Your Perspective ?

A Surveyor’s Perspective:
Islamic vs. Christian Perspectives 

A person’s perspective will greatly influence how he assimilates the information he receives.  For example, when a surveyor explores a new territory he strives to find the best point of view to draw his map.  Different hill tops offer different perspectives.  So, he strives to climb the highest hilltop to gain the best possible vantage point to show how all the hills, rivers and valleys fit together to draw the best possible map. 

A person’s religious perspective is interdependent on how he perceives who God is.  Different mountain tops will present different views of God.  What one perceives as the single greatest attribute of God will influence how he understands the things of God and his own relationship with God.  These different vantage points, or different mountain tops if you will, could be one of the following; God’s Authority, God’s Majesty, the Fear of God, that God is a Jealous God, or that God is a God of Love, etc. 

For example, Islam seems to emphasize God’s Authority.  Islam itself means "submission" while "Muslim" means one who has submitted" to the will of Allah. 

Consider what Jesus Christ has revealed to us. 

1 John 4:7-18 
“Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God.  He who does not love does not know God; for God is love.  ...  
In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins. ...

“By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his own Spirit.  And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world.  ... God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. ...  There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”     RSV

 

It has been said that if you were presented two different views of God the one that is more loving is closer to who God is.  For example, jealousy might be said to be a quality that God has, whereas Love is who God is.*

So, I would like to suggest that the highest mountain or the best vantage point to understand God is that He is a God of Love and that God is a Family.  God is the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 

It is inadequate to substitute Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier for Father, Son, and Holy Spirit because that would be substituting what He does for who He is.  For example, if a child’s mother works as a bank teller it would seem quite odd for the child to ask, “When is the bank teller coming home?”  A “bank teller” is what she does, a “Mommy” is who she is.

God’s family is not an imitation of our family, but rather our families here on earth are an imitation of God’s true family in heaven.  He is Father and Son.  And their love for each other is so great that they produce a third person, the Holy Spirit.  Accepting how Jesus revealed God as a Family and focusing on the Love of God enables our hearts to climb higher and higher so that we might better understand God and receive who He is more fully.  Love opens our heart to understanding the great mysteries of God. 

In conclusion, focusing on God as a Family and as a God of Love is then the highest mountain from which to view and understand the things of God.

Read more on how we should understand God’s jealousy.