I Am Enjoying Being A Muslim
If somebody came to you and made you an offer:
- "[b]look, I have a house, here's a picture, beautiful mansion, it's in front of the beach and it's on top of a cliff, it's got this gorgeous view. Everything you've ever wanted is there in that house. This house is worth a few million, but I'm willing to sell it to you for $200[/b]".
First of all, you won't believe it. But he furthers the offer and says:
- "[b]listen, it's guarantee I'm giving it to you for $200, but the only thing is you can have it after 15 years. So I need the $200 now, but you can have it after 15 years[/b]".
There's no way you take that deal! But basically that is what Allah is offering.
Allah says that [b]here's Paradise, doesn't take much to get in it, I'm not asking for a lot, but you can't go now[/b].
And the devil comes along and says, "[b]look, I'm not giving you a mansion in Paradise, I'll give you much less, but the thing is I'll give it to you right now. It's cheap, just do it right now. It's much easier, you don't have to pay anything to me[/b]", and he'll just use the immediate cash offer.
Those of you in business, when somebody comes to you and says:
- "[b]hey, I want to buy your product, but I'll make the payment next month[/b]".
Somebody else comes to you and says:
- "[b]I want to buy your product, but I'll pay you cash right now. Give me 10% discount[/b]".
You will take the cash, because you don't want to wait for another month!
Human beings want things that come quickly. The devil capitalizes on that, he excites your feelings and says, "[b]why do you have to wait?! why do you have to be patient?! why can't you have what you want right now?! don't you want to be happy?![/b]".
The devil comes right in front of you, you can't see anything but what you desire, what you want, and it blinds you to the point where you don't want to think about what's going to happen afterwards, what damage it would do to others or to yourself. You're just completely led on by the devil.
That's actually one of the great attacks of the devil, he glazes your eyes over.
If something is right in front of you, like for example when you're driving on the road and you got stuck in traffic and there's a truck right in front of you, you don't know how bad the traffic is, you can't even look around because this truck is so big, your view is completely blocked.
When something is in front of you, you can't look ahead. That's one of the things the devil wants.
What is actually ahead of you and me is meeting with Allah. It's unavoidable. We are marching towards our Creator whether you like it or not. Whether you accept that or not. We're all heading that way with every breath that we take, that meeting is unavoidable. But the devil doesn't want you to see that, he doesn't want us to see that with every passing day we're now closer to meeting Allah than we were yesterday, and then tomorrow we're even closer.
All the devil wants you to think about when it comes to the future is not meeting with Allah, but meeting with your friends, or with some vacation, meeting up with some good times, what's going to happen this weekend, what we're doing next weekend. The devil wants you to think of the future with what's right in front of you but not the long term.
And even people when they start thinking long term, they think about things like home-ownership, or they are going to move, or future education. That's long term thinking. But actually Allah wants you to have even longer term thinking, when you and I are going to stand in front of our Creator, Allah.
- "[b]look, I have a house, here's a picture, beautiful mansion, it's in front of the beach and it's on top of a cliff, it's got this gorgeous view. Everything you've ever wanted is there in that house. This house is worth a few million, but I'm willing to sell it to you for $200[/b]".
First of all, you won't believe it. But he furthers the offer and says:
- "[b]listen, it's guarantee I'm giving it to you for $200, but the only thing is you can have it after 15 years. So I need the $200 now, but you can have it after 15 years[/b]".
There's no way you take that deal! But basically that is what Allah is offering.
Allah says that [b]here's Paradise, doesn't take much to get in it, I'm not asking for a lot, but you can't go now[/b].
And the devil comes along and says, "[b]look, I'm not giving you a mansion in Paradise, I'll give you much less, but the thing is I'll give it to you right now. It's cheap, just do it right now. It's much easier, you don't have to pay anything to me[/b]", and he'll just use the immediate cash offer.
Those of you in business, when somebody comes to you and says:
- "[b]hey, I want to buy your product, but I'll make the payment next month[/b]".
Somebody else comes to you and says:
- "[b]I want to buy your product, but I'll pay you cash right now. Give me 10% discount[/b]".
You will take the cash, because you don't want to wait for another month!
Human beings want things that come quickly. The devil capitalizes on that, he excites your feelings and says, "[b]why do you have to wait?! why do you have to be patient?! why can't you have what you want right now?! don't you want to be happy?![/b]".
The devil comes right in front of you, you can't see anything but what you desire, what you want, and it blinds you to the point where you don't want to think about what's going to happen afterwards, what damage it would do to others or to yourself. You're just completely led on by the devil.
That's actually one of the great attacks of the devil, he glazes your eyes over.
If something is right in front of you, like for example when you're driving on the road and you got stuck in traffic and there's a truck right in front of you, you don't know how bad the traffic is, you can't even look around because this truck is so big, your view is completely blocked.
When something is in front of you, you can't look ahead. That's one of the things the devil wants.
What is actually ahead of you and me is meeting with Allah. It's unavoidable. We are marching towards our Creator whether you like it or not. Whether you accept that or not. We're all heading that way with every breath that we take, that meeting is unavoidable. But the devil doesn't want you to see that, he doesn't want us to see that with every passing day we're now closer to meeting Allah than we were yesterday, and then tomorrow we're even closer.
All the devil wants you to think about when it comes to the future is not meeting with Allah, but meeting with your friends, or with some vacation, meeting up with some good times, what's going to happen this weekend, what we're doing next weekend. The devil wants you to think of the future with what's right in front of you but not the long term.
And even people when they start thinking long term, they think about things like home-ownership, or they are going to move, or future education. That's long term thinking. But actually Allah wants you to have even longer term thinking, when you and I are going to stand in front of our Creator, Allah.
