“Raul, you are a good Muslim.”

This is what Onur said to me when I was having a follow up conversation with him after our Muslim event that we had when the World Race was here. Onur visited us to do an interview for the program that he is in. Before this, I had a deeper discussion with him. He told me that he is originally from Saudi Arabia. He moved to Turkey and practices Islam. 

I asked him, “If I wanted to follow Islam, what are the benefits? Where would I end up?” He said I would end up with God. The same God that the Hebrews and Christians have. The God of Abraham. 

So I asked him, “Can I be sure I will get to God?” 

He said that first you have to go to hell and pay for all of your sins and after you have paid, then you can go to God, but this is still not certain. 

I replied, “So Islam doesn’t have a savior, just a prophet, right? You have to save yourself?” 

He said “Yes.” 

“So you have to pay for your sins?” 

“Yes.” 

Then he asked me about what I believe. I told him that Christianity has a Savior, Jesus Christ, who paid for my sins. 

He asked me, “How did you get to this belief?” 

I told him that historical Christianity brought me more confusion than help me. And I said that because I knew about the crusades that happened long ago. I know that many Muslins were killed during the crusades by Christians. I told him that I do not identify with that kind of Christian. 

At that moment, he became more open and said, “So you do good things because you have to.” 

I replied, “I do good things because I want to. Jesus paid for my sins and I want to do things for him.” 

That’s when he said, “Raul, you are a good Muslim.” 

I thought about what Paul said. With the Jews, I became like the Jews. With the Greek, I became like the Greek. I said to myself, “Lord, help me to be like a Muslim to gain a Muslim for Jesus.