By now a question has been sitting quietly in the background of everything you have read.
If I follow Issa al-Masih, what am I? Am I still a Muslim? Have I become a Christian? What has changed? What remains?
These are honest questions. They deserve honest answers.
قُولُوا آمَنَّا بِاللَّهِ وَمَا أُنزِلَ إِلَيْنَا وَمَا أُنزِلَ إِلَىٰ إِبْرَاهِيمَ وَإِسْمَاعِيلَ وَإِسْحَاقَ وَيَعْقُوبَ وَالْأَسْبَاطِ وَمَا أُوتِيَ مُوسَىٰ وَعِيسَىٰ وَمَا أُوتِيَ النَّبِيُّونَ مِن رَّبِّهِمْ لَا نُفَرِّقُ بَيْنَ أَحَدٍ مِّنْهُمْ وَنَحْنُ لَهُ مُسْلِمُونَ
“Say: We believe in Allah and what has been revealed to us, and what was revealed to Ibrahim and Ismail and Ishaq and Ya‘qub and the tribes, and what was given to Musa and Issa, and what was given to the prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and we submit to Him.”
Surah Al-Baqarah 2:136 | quran.com/2/136
Does following Issa mean becoming a Christian?
No. Issa al-Masih was not a Christian. He was not a member of any institution that exists today. He was born a Jew in the land of Israel. He lived in the tradition of the prophets. He called people not to a new religion but to the ancient surrender that Ibrahim, Nuh, and Musa had all walked before him.
The institution we call Christianity was built in the centuries after Issa. Some of what was built is faithful to him. Much of it is not. We do not join an institution. We follow a person. And that person predates every institution in the world.
Does following Issa mean leaving Islam?
The word Islam means surrender. Complete, unconditional surrender to the will of Allah. This is the deepest meaning of the word, the meaning it carried before any religion claimed it.
Ibrahim surrendered. He placed his son on the altar and held nothing back. This was Islam. Nuh surrendered. He built the Ark when the sky was clear and the people laughed. This was Islam. Musa surrendered. He went back to Pharaoh when every instinct said run. This was Islam.
And Issa al-Masih surrendered completely. He surrendered to death, to humiliation, to the full consequence of the sin of humanity, so that the mercy of Allah could reach every human being who has ever lived. This was the ultimate Islam. The ultimate surrender.
The follower of Issa is not walking away from surrender. They are walking into the deepest surrender the world has ever seen.
What actually changes?
What changes is the ground you stand on. Before, you stood on your own deeds and hoped they would be enough. Now you stand on the righteousness of the sinless one. The mercy of Allah, predestined.
What does not change: you pray. More, not less. You fast. You give. You live in holiness. You honor what Allah has made clean and avoid what He has made forbidden. You love your family. You respect your community.
What deepens: your certainty before Allah. Your love for those around you. Your freedom from the fear of the Day of Judgment.
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Injil, Ephesians 2:8-9 | bible.com/bible/111/EPH.2.8-9
Grace. Faith. Gift. Not works. Not earning. Receiving. This is the way of Issa. It does not make you careless. It makes you grateful. And gratitude produces more holiness than obligation ever did.
The Traveller and the Weight
A man had walked a long road his whole life. He walked it faithfully. He never stopped. He never turned back. He carried a great weight on his back because the road required it, and he did not complain.
One day he met a traveller who had walked the same road. The traveller said: that weight you are carrying, it was paid for long ago. You do not have to carry it anymore.
The man said: but I have always carried it. Every traveller on this road carries it.
The traveller said: every traveller has been invited to set it down. Most do not know they can.
The man set the weight down slowly. He straightened up. He looked at the road ahead.
Then he began to walk. Faster than he had ever walked before.
He was not on a different road. He was on the same road. But he was lighter than he had ever been. And the destination felt, for the first time in his life, like something he would actually reach.
Following Issa is not a new religion. It is the oldest surrender in the world.
It is the surrender of Ibrahim. The faith of Nuh. The obedience of Musa. The complete, unconditional, nothing-held-back surrender to the will of Allah.
What would it mean for you, in your life, to walk this road with nothing held back?
Sit with that. Bring it to your prayer.