What makes a person faithful to God?

Not parents or surroundings, because these differ everywhere. True faithfulness to God grows from an honest search within oneself, or it comes through revelation from God Himself.

One might think that upbringing by parents makes a person believing and faithful. But parents differ everywhere, and their convictions contradict each other. How could true devotion to the one God arise from such different influences?

The Holy Qur’an teaches that every child is born with a nature that is good and inclines towards God. The Bible, too, says that man is created in the image of God. If that is so, where do the great differences between adults come from? The hadith above gives the answer. Parents and surroundings turn the innocent child into a different person.

Faithfulness to God therefore cannot simply be handed down. It grows when a person looks deep within and honestly studies his own nature. Many have discovered on this path that God is at work within them and reveals Himself in their inner being. Whoever recognises God in this way as his own God asks himself why he should not be faithful to Him.

The second path is revelation. God speaks to His prophets, and their certainty is so great that they sacrifice everything they own for His sake. So faithfulness either comes down from above through revelation or grows from within through insight.

The greater the certainty, the easier it becomes to make sacrifices for one’s faith. That is why faithfulness does not begin with outward duties but with an inner conviction to which one then holds fast.