February 2022

To Help you Pray this month for your Local Mosque Community. 

I was born and raised in a Middle-eastern Islamic country. Although my family was not very religious, I was influenced by what I learned in school about Islam. I believed in one God and I also believed that Christians believed in three Gods. From the media my opinion of Christians in the west was, they were immoral. 

After the revolution and a change of the country’s leaders, atheism was growing. At age 17 I was influenced by them too. I stopped to think about God’s existence. I grew up insecure about myself and about life. It is obvious that it couldn’t help me to find the meaning of life, and who is the real God. 

When I was in university there was project for my finals in my major in art. I chose to paint and color analysis a masterpiece of “Christ on the cross between the two thieves” painted by “Peter Paul Rubens”. I tried for a week to paint this picture, but I couldn’t finish that project, and I fell into a terrible depression. Through the painting, I became aware of being a sinner, but I didn’t know what to do. Lots of questions came to my mind. I struggled with this question. How can God be a man? There was no Bible and no one to explain Jesus to me. During this depression I began to read The Koran. I became more and more confused, and I couldn’t accept the idea of who God was, according to the book of Koran. 

Twenty years passed, my sister became a Christian through a dream and told me about Christ. I could hardly believe it.   When I read the Bible, I told her “It is just for kids”. She continued to pray for me for two years. On Christmas day she persuaded me and our other sister to go with her to a church. 

I believed that Jesus may be a prophet and a man who had the mystical union with God, drowned and reached to the light of God. The pastor who was a lady began to teach about Jesus and I listened closely. It was like I was alone in the room even though many other people were there. She was speaking just to me, and I will never forget the things she said to me. 

“Who is Jesus? He does not lead a government. He had no shelter for himself. He forgave the adulterous woman. He is a gentleman. He doesn’t come to your heart without permission. God is telling you that you are very small. You cannot reach God, but He can be small in order to come to you”. 

 Then I looked at the pastor and she had the same halo of light around her head that had been over the head of Christ in the painting that had disturbed me 20 years previously. I suddenly felt something come inside of me. I started to cry. 

When I went home, I couldn’t sleep all night long. I kept saying to myself “Jesus is God”. The Holy Spirit kept coming over me. It was wonderful. In the morning, I confessed myself as a sinner and repented of my life without God. I suddenly realized that my eyes, ears and heart were open to God. 

Since that time, I have continued to have a new life. I have self confidence, I am able to love people, and to forgive others. I have a desire to share my story that Jesus is so wonderful, He is Lord, He is God. He is teaching me that I must love him with all my heart, soul, mind and strength and I must love myself if I want to love others. He says to love others as I love myself.    

Prayer Points: 

• Muslims who don’t feel welcome or at home in your community to experience God’s love. That they would find a Christian friend to welcome them. 
• Christians in the neighborhood, marketplace, and community gatherings to be the first to offer a welcome and begin a friendship with their Muslim neighbors, colleagues and acquaintances. 
• That many Muslims would access services and opportunities offered by churches in their neighborhoods overcoming the strangeness of entering a church building and discovering the welcome they will find there. 
• Many Muslims point to a particular event that convinced them of the truth of the Gospel. It might be an answered prayer, a dream of Jesus Christ, a vision, a powerful conviction, or some other thing that was key to their decision to follow Jesus Christ. Let’s pray that Muslims have such an encounter and that they would meet a Christian friend who can explain Jesus to them. 
• That today is the ‘fullness of time’ for many Muslims who have been learning about Jesus Christ, and that they decide to follow Him.