Chapter Twenty-Four

“Islam Is Not the Answer, and Jihad Is Not the Way; Jesus Is the Way”

Who are the Revivalists, and what do they want?

Tass Saada was a killer.

He and his friends murdered Jews in Israel. They murdered civilians and soldiers alike. They attacked Christians in Jordan. Sometimes they tossed hand grenades at Christians’ homes. Other times they strafed houses with machine-gun fire. They once tried to assassinate the crown prince of an Arab country. They nearly succeeded. And they did all this willingly. They did it eagerly. Saada certainly did. His nickname was once Jazzar—“butcher.” It was a moniker he relished.

Born in Gaza and raised in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf in a world of radical Islam and violent Palestinian nationalism, by his teenage years Saada was a cauldron of seething, roiling hatred. His family was close to the Saudi royal family. He once met Osama bin Laden. He became personal friends with Yasser Arafat, a man he long regarded as a hero and in whose name he happily killed. He served as a sniper in the Palestine Liberation Organization and for a time was Arafat’s driver and one of his bodyguards.

But in 1993, God gave Tass Saada’s life drama a second act.

After marrying an American and moving to the United States—a country he had long hated—this jihadist found Jesus. This violent Radical was one day radically transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. This killer became a man of peace and compassion.

“Jesus, Come into My Life”

Saada was not expecting to become a follower of Jesus Christ.

To the contrary, when an evangelical friend tried to share the gospel with him, he became enraged. When his friend encouraged him to read the New Testament for himself, every fiber of his being resisted.

“I must not touch that book!” he said.559

“Why not?” his friend said. “It’s just paper.”

“No!” Saada replied. “It’s God’s Word!”

The two men just stood there for a moment. “Do you really believe that?” his friend asked in shock.

“Yes, I do,” Saada replied, hardly understanding the words that were coming out of his mouth. As a Muslim, he had not been raised to believe the Bible was God’s Word. He certainly had not been trained to believe that as a Radical. But he soon heard his friend saying, “Well, if you believe that, then let me read you what the Bible says about Jesus Christ. Fair enough?”

Saada nodded.

His friend began reading from the book of John, chapter one, verse one: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

The moment his friend said, “Word,” Saada began to shake. He suddenly flashed back to a line in the Qur’an that said, “The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was . . . the Messenger of God, and His Word that He committed to Mary, and a Spirit from Him.”560

“Hearing the Bible say essentially the same thing, that Jesus was the Word of God, struck deep to the core of my being,” Saada would later recall. “Before I knew it, I was on my knees. I didn’t consciously decide to kneel. It just happened. I lost all awareness that my friend was in the room. A light came into my field of vision—a talking light. Now I know this sounds really odd, but this is what happened that Sunday afternoon, March 14, 1993. The light said to me, ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’ I didn’t know at that moment that those words were what Jesus said during the Last Supper [in John 14:6]. As far as I was concerned, they were a message from Jesus solely for me.”

Suddenly, Saada said, he just knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that the triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—existed. He knew with certainty that this triune God loved him. And sobbing with shame at his sin and with thankfulness for God’s mercy, he cried out, “Oh, Jesus, come into my life! Forgive me and be my Lord and Savior!”

“I felt as if a heavy load went flying off my shoulders,” he said. “A sense of peace and joy rushed into my heart. The presence of God was so real it seemed I could almost reach out and touch it.”

His friend was in shock. He too was in tears. To be sure Saada really understood what he was doing, he explained the gospel in some detail. And then, to be sure Saada was really committing his life fully and completely to Jesus Christ, he led Saada in the following prayer:

Lord Jesus, I am a sinner, and I am sorry for my sins. I ask you to forgive me and wash away my sins by your precious blood. Lord, I can’t save myself. I can’t take away my sins, but you can. You are the Savior of the world—the only Savior—and I want you to be my Savior. I ask you to forgive me and come into my life. Change me and give me a new heart. I will forever love you and follow you. Now I thank you for hearing my prayer and saving my soul. I know you have, because you promised you would. Now I am yours, and you are mine. I will serve you the rest of my life.

Saada not only willingly and eagerly prayed that prayer, he become a dedicated follower of Jesus Christ from that moment forward.

A Minister of the Gospel

“I was a Palestinian sniper,” Saada would later tell me. “But then I fell in love with a Savior who loves Arabs as well as Jews.”

In his remarkable book, Once An Arafat Man, Saada explained his realization that the God of the Bible loves us all with an unfathomable, everlasting, unquenchable love. He explained that God’s love is so amazing, so divine, that He actually offers all of us—Jew and Gentile alike—the free gift of salvation through the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ. And he explained that God wants to adopt each one of us into His own family. He wants to bless us. He wants to take care of us. He wants to heal us and change us and make us more like Him. And He wants to empower us to be a blessing to others.

Given Saada’s upbringing and life experiences, it is remarkable that he said yes to that divine love. Indeed, it is miraculous, but that is exactly what happened, and in the process, Saada was changed forever. Before long, his whole immediate family had come to faith in Christ. Eventually, God called him to be a minister of the gospel and even gave him the opportunity to share the message of salvation with his old boss, Yasser Arafat, before the PLO chairman’s death in 2004.

Saada also humbly shared the message of Christ’s love and forgiveness with his parents and brothers, still living in the Gulf area, many of whom wanted to kill him for converting away from Islam. And eventually, he and his wife, Karen, began a ministry to reach out to the poor and needy in Gaza and the West Bank—especially children—with God’s love through the distribution of humanitarian relief supplies in the name of Jesus.

That is how Saada and I met.

It was a Saturday night in January 2008, and I had been invited to preach at a church in Jerusalem. My sermon title was “What God Is Doing among the Muslims.” This was not a typical message for an audience of Jewish and Gentile Christ-followers in Israel. But after much prayer, I felt the Lord wanted me to share with my Israeli friends what He had told me to share with my Jordanian friends when I preached in Amman several years earlier:

We need to get serious about obeying Jesus’ command to love our neighbors and our enemies. We can only do this when we have the power of the Holy Spirit flowing through our lives. But when we do—when we truly obey Jesus’ teachings and the model He set for us—heads will turn. People will be shocked when they see us love those who hate us. Then they will ask questions. Their hearts will be softened. They will be curious to know more about the God we serve. And then, hopefully, they will want to know this God personally for themselves.

I had told the Jordanian followers of Jesus that this meant it was time to start loving their Jewish neighbors and enemies. That night in Jerusalem, I told the Israeli believers that this meant loving their Muslim neighbors and enemies and believing that the God of the Bible truly loves all people everywhere, including those who hate Him and His children.

I explained that behind the headlines of all the Middle Eastern wars and rumors of wars and revolutions and acts of terror, God is actually moving in an incredibly powerful way. People in the epicenter are coming to Christ in record numbers. Millions in Iran. Millions in Sudan. Millions in Pakistan. Millions in Egypt. And many more throughout the rest of the region. It is truly stunning to behold. The question I posed for Israeli believers is the question I pose for all of us who claim to be followers of Jesus: what role does the Lord have for us in strengthening our brothers and sisters who come to Christ from a Muslim background, and how can we actively love our neighbors and our enemies when, humanly speaking, this is impossible?

That was the message I had come to Jerusalem to share, and who was the first couple I was introduced to that night as I came through the front door of the church? Tass and Karen Saada.

I had never met them before. When they told me their story, I was deeply moved. Here we were, a former aide to PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and a former aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, hugging each other—not trying to kill each other—in the heart of Jerusalem. All because of the work Jesus had done to give us hearts of love rather than hatred.

I had a sense that this was the beginning of a story, not the end. And sure enough, the very next day, the Saadas and my team and I decided to travel together with several Israeli colleagues to the Israeli city of Ashkelon. There we visited the Barzilai Medical Center, a hospital that treats Jews and Arabs wounded in the ongoing border skirmishes that have plagued that region for so long.

As we met with the hospital administrators, Tass and I both presented checks from our respective ministries to help finance the purchase of much-needed medical equipment. When the doctors and staff asked why we had come to bless them, we both told them our stories. Tass explained that he had been born just a few miles south of where we were gathered and had been raised with a desire to kill everyone in the room where we were sitting.

“You really worked for the PLO?” asked one doctor.

Tass nodded.

“Then what happened? What changed you?” another asked.

Tass gave all the credit to Jesus Christ. He briefly explained how God had changed his heart and given him a love for the Jewish people.

And then he stunned us all. He asked the hospital staff to forgive him for what he and the Palestinian people had done over the years to harm them. It was a powerful moment. Everyone was in tears. These Israelis had never seen anything like it. Honestly, few people have.

The Rise of the Revivalists

Tass Saada is no longer a Radical—he is a Revivalist.

He no longer believes that Islam is the answer. He no longer believes jihad is the way. He believes that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life and that no one—Jew or Gentile, Radical or Reformer—can have a personal relationship with God without accepting that Jesus is the Messiah, just as the Bible teaches in John 14:6.

Though Saada would certainly prefer to see Reformers in power in the Middle East rather than Radicals, I have not found him to be a particularly political person by nature. He believes he is part of a much greater and more important revolution—a spiritual revolution to save souls and change lives. He believes passionately that the only way for the people of the Middle East to move forward and make real and lasting social, economic, and spiritual progress is to make a choice to skip back in their history and revive what once was so prevalent in the region before Islam—first-century, New Testament, biblical Christianity.

Saada has completely dedicated his life to making sure that all the people in the Middle East—especially all Muslims—have the opportunity before they die to hear and understand the claims of Jesus Christ in their own language and make their own decision to follow Him or reject Him.

Revivalists like Saada argue with great conviction that biblical Christianity is not a Western, colonialist, or imperialist religion. Nor is it some foreign ideology imposed on the Muslim world to enslave or hinder it. Rather, Revivalists assert that biblical Christianity is a movement that was born in the Middle East, one that spread rapidly to all corners of the Middle East, one that then spread all over the globe, and one that is destined by biblical prophecy to be dramatically revived in the Middle East just before Jesus Christ returns to set up His Kingdom on earth, based in the Holy City of Jerusalem.

They believe that Christianity is a spiritually and personally liberating force, the most powerful liberating force in human history. They believe that a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ changes hearts so that the violent become men and women of peace and reconciliation. And they believe this not because someone told them about it but because they have experienced it for themselves.

As you will see in this final section—as you will hear in their own words—the Revivalists know firsthand that the gospel changes the hearts of the fearful into hearts filled with courage and hope, that it changes those who were wracked with sin and guilt into those who experience the joy of forgiveness and a new life. And again, they know it because they have experienced it themselves.

If you travel through the Middle East, you will meet many ex-Muslims who will tell you, as they have told me, that they have seen dreams and visions of Jesus, who personally told them to follow Him. They readily identify with the apostle Paul, who described his own conversion in his letter to the Galatians saying, “I neither received [the gospel] from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:12). These former Muslims are stunned by the way God has changed their lives, especially given the fact that many of them, like Paul, used to “persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it.” Like Paul, they were “extremely zealous” for their “ancestral traditions” (Galatians 1:13-14). Like Paul—the greatest apostle in the history of Christendom, a man who wrote much of the New Testament—they, too, were once religious extremists who hated Jesus and all of His followers.

Yet they also personally and deeply identify with Paul’s words in Galatians 1:15-24: “But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem . . . but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus. . . . Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia [Turkey and Armenia] . . . [and the people] kept hearing, ‘He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith which he once tried to destroy.’ And they were glorifying God because of me.”

The Revivalists say that what happened in the early Church two thousand years ago is happening again today.

What Revivalists Want

When asked what they want, Revivalists like Saada and others point to Matthew 28:18-20, where Jesus told His disciples, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

They say that because Jesus is God, He has all power. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Thus, when He gives His disciples an order, it must be followed. And that order, they note, is to preach the gospel to the whole world and make disciples—not just “Christians” but truly dedicated and devoted Christ-followers—of “all the nations.”

Not just the safe nations.

Not just the democratic nations.

Not just the free market nations.

Jesus told His disciples to go make more disciples in all the nations.

Even the difficult nations.

Even the dangerous nations.

Even the Radical nations.

Indeed, the Revivalists say the Bible provides a specific geographic game plan. In Acts 1:8, Jesus told His disciples, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”

The directive is clear, the Revivalists say. Jesus told them to start the Church in the epicenter, in Jerusalem, where He died and rose again. Then He commanded His disciples to take the gospel to the West Bank and Gaza and beyond in a series of concentric circles radiating out from Jerusalem and extending even to the remotest and most desolate parts of the world. By definition, this includes the entire Islamic world.

Reaching the entire world—and particularly the world of Islam—with the gospel is an enormously challenging mission. Many Revivalists readily concede that humanly speaking they feel overwhelmed by the task. Often they feel physically weak, or emotionally frail, or intimidated by the Radicals, or not nearly educated enough to make the most intellectual case for why a Muslim should become a follower of Christ.

Yet they say their encouragement and strength come from biblical promises like Matthew 28 and Acts 1, in which Jesus promises to be with them always. He also promises to give them access to God’s supernatural power, the power of the Holy Spirit, as they obey Him in reaching the people of all nations—including Muslims—with the gospel. He promises to guide them. He promises to strengthen them. He promises to give them the right words to say and sufficient courage in the face of danger. And they say they have seen God keep His promises time and time again.

So these Christ-followers say they intend to fulfill the “Great Commission” that Jesus has given them, whatever may befall them, even persecution, torture, and death. They ask, “If Jesus loved us so much that He gave up His life for us at the hands of His enemies, shouldn’t we be willing to die in His service if that is necessary?”

Unlike the Radicals, the Revivalists are not seeking death or trying to become martyrs. They want to live as long as possible to reach as many Muslims with the gospel as possible. They point to Deuteronomy 30:19, where God instructs His followers to “choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants.” They point to Romans 12:1, where the apostle Paul says, “I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” They have no intention, therefore, of blowing themselves up as suicide bombers or doing other kinds of violence to kill “infidels.” They are commanded to be living sacrifices—people devoting their very lives to serve and to save the lives of others.

Nevertheless, they know full well that Jesus also taught His disciples there will be fierce opposition. They know they need to be ready to die at any moment. “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me,” Jesus said in Luke 9:23-24. “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.”

Two Different Approaches

It should be noted at the outset that not all Revivalists operate alike.

There are hundreds of different creative strategies being used to win Muslims to Christ and help them grow in their faith, but in terms of philosophy of ministry, there are two basic approaches, and they are distinctly different. This was a point driven home to me as I interviewed Salim, the director of one of the largest ministries in the Middle East, a man with several thousand Arab, Iranian, and other national believers working with him as paid staff and volunteers in every Islamic country in North Africa, the Middle East, and central Asia.

“Joel, I see two groups among the Revivalists,” Salim told me. “First, there are those who say, ‘Islam is wrong and is not the answer,’ and they are preaching that Jesus is the way. And there is a second group that says, ‘We’re preaching Jesus alone, not criticizing Islam.’ For example, our ministry preaches simply that Jesus is the Son of God and the only way of salvation. We explain His teachings. We explain His miracles. We explain His death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead. We teach His love for the poor and the needy and women and the outcasts. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2:1-2, ‘When I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.’ We never mention Islam. We never mention Muhammad. We just preach Christ. Period. There are other ministries that specifically teach that Muhammad is not a prophet and that Islam is wrong to say that Jesus is not the Son of God. And then they explain why Jesus really is the Son of God. . . . I wouldn’t say that one is more effective than the other, but we find there is a huge benefit to simply preaching Christ’s love as the positive, hopeful message it is to those Muslims who are hungering for truth and have become disillusioned and disenchanted with Islam.”561

Salim noted that the ministries that are confronting Islam directly are, for the most part, waging an “air war” through radio and satellite television (as well as the Internet) for Muslim hearts and minds that have typically been closed to—and sometimes violently opposed to—the gospel message. For security reasons, the leaders of these ministries typically operate from outside the region or from its perimeters, so they are not in immediate danger of being killed by Muslims enraged by their criticisms of Muhammad and the Qur’an.

By contrast, those ministries that are preaching the gospel without ever mentioning Islam are typically waging a “ground war” inside hostile Muslim territory. Their leaders—and, more important, their disciples and volunteers—are talking to Muslims face-to-face, one-on-one and in small groups. They are distributing copies of the Injil (the Arabic word for New Testament). They are distributing gospel literature. They are distributing CDs and DVDs with the gospel message and information about how to become a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ. They are holding Bible studies and house churches in the privacy of people’s homes. In short, they are operating inside the fire and focusing their efforts on Muslims who are already close to leaving Islam and open to hearing and receiving the gospel message.

I asked Salim if there was room for both approaches.

“Absolutely,” he said. “There is room for both. The benefit of those ministries that confront Islam directly is that they create controversy. They generate conversation among Muslims about what is wrong with Islam, the hypocrisy of its leaders, and the contradictions in its texts, as well as who Jesus is and what he taught. Jesus attacked the Pharisees, the religious leaders of His day. He didn’t attack the common Jews, but He faced the Jewish leaders directly with their hypocrisy. So those ministries that are confronting the Islamic leaders today have an important place. They are definitely rocking the boat. We are too. It just needs to be remembered that we are paying a price on the inside by the anger being generated from the outside.”

Two Different Kinds

Just as not all Revivalist strategies are identical, it should also be noted that not all Revivalists themselves are alike.

I have had the wonderful privilege of meeting with and befriending Revivalists all over the world during the past two decades. In the course of researching and writing this book over the past several years, I have spoken with and interviewed at length more than 150 Christian leaders operating in and ministering to the Muslim world. Whether they were ethnically Arab, Iranian, Turkish, Kurdish, Afghan, Berber, or from some other background, I found their stories absolutely amazing and profoundly inspiring, in part because they are leading a spiritual Revolution as significant and consequential as those led by the Radicals and the Reformers. I would even say more so.

In the next chapter, I will share with you the trend lines indicating how rapidly Christianity is growing in the Muslim world. But first, let me briefly define two different kinds of Revivalists so you will better understand who they are and where they are coming from.

Some Revivalists are known as “MBBs,” which stands for Muslim Background Believers. These are true, born-again, fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ, commonly known in the West simply as “Christians.” Their distinction is that they were born into Muslim families and were raised as Muslims. But at some point in their lives, they converted to Christianity and away from Islam. Because of that decision, MBBs face persecution, torture, and death from their families, their neighbors, and sometimes their governments for leaving Islam in general and for becoming Christ-followers in particular. MBBs face tremendous social and legal pressure to keep quiet about their faith and not seek out fellowship with other believers and certainly not try to share their faith with other Muslims. They need a tremendous amount of prayer, therefore, for wisdom and courage and for Christian friends who can help them grow and mature in their faith and know how best to handle themselves in a godly way. This is true wherever an MBB lives, but it is particularly true for MBBs who still live in a Muslim country.

The other kind of Revivalist is someone known as an “NCBB,” which stands for Nominal Christian Background Believer. These, too, are true, born-again, fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. Their distinction is that while they are true believers today, they were born into families with parents who called themselves Christians but did not actually have real, active, life-changing, personal relationships with Jesus Christ. Their families may have identified themselves culturally or religiously as Christians as opposed to Muslims or Jews or Hindus or atheists. Perhaps they went to church often. Perhaps they went rarely, only on Christmas and Easter, for example. But the key is that while a nominal Christian may describe himself as a Christian by name, he has not actually been transformed—born again—on the inside.

Once they make a decision to follow Christ and become NCBBs, such believers face the threat of persecution, torture, and death from neighbors and sometimes their governments if they want to share their faith with Muslims and become engaged in ministries to help MBBs grow in their faith. They also face ostracism from family members and friends who remain nominal Christians and don’t understand the life change they are undergoing. Sadly, many NCBBs face persecution even from the churches they grew up in because their passion for Jesus and for fulfilling the Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20 now threatens their childhood pastors or priests who oppose rocking the boat in any way, shape, or form in a Muslim community. Therefore, like MBBs, these believers need a tremendous amount of prayer for wisdom and courage and fellow Christ-following friends who can help them grow and mature in their faith and know how best to handle themselves in a godly way wherever they live, but particularly if they still live in a Muslim country.

The very notion of an NCBB can be confusing for many people, particularly Muslims, to whom a person is a Muslim simply if he is born to Muslim parents, not just if he converts to Islam. But the Bible teaches that just being physically born into a so-called Christian family does not bring about salvation. Indeed, even if a person’s parents or siblings really are true followers of Jesus, being born into such a family still does not save that person. The only way a person can be forgiven of his sins and saved from eternal damnation, according to the Bible, is to personally repent and receive Jesus Christ as Savior by faith and in the process be spiritually reborn.

In John 3:3, Jesus told a religious leader from Jerusalem, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” One’s physical birth into a religious family, Jesus was saying, is not enough. Nor is being a very “religious” person. Or even a religious leader. Something else has to happen on the inside. Thus, as you read the New Testament, it becomes clear that the term “born again” is a biblical term referring to a person who (1) is fully convinced that faith in Jesus Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection from the dead is the only way to be forgiven of his sins and adopted into God’s family; and (2) has consciously, willfully, and purposefully asked God through prayer to wash his sins away and save him through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

John 1:12 tells us that “as many as received Him [Jesus Christ], to them He gave the right to become children of God.”

Jesus said in John 3:16 that “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

In Romans 10:9-10, the apostle Paul explains how to be born again: “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”

Then in 2 Corinthians 5:17-18, Paul tells us the result of being born again: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.”

My own family’s spiritual journey has helped me understand how this process works. Though my mother is not from the Middle East, she is actually an NCBB. She was born into a Protestant family. She attended church when she was growing up in Rome, New York. As such, she thought she was a Christian. But the truth is she was a nominal Christian. Her heart had not been transformed, for until 1973, no one had ever explained to her that going to church was not enough. She did not know she needed to individually receive Jesus Christ to be her Savior and Lord. All she knew was that despite calling herself a Christian, she was filled with enormous loneliness and anxiety, and she had no idea how to change or how to find relief and hope for her life.

Then she visited a different church in Rochester, New York, where several couples simply and patiently answered her questions. They read to her the key verses in the Bible that explain how to know God in a real and personal way, and once they had, she knew immediately that what they were saying was true. She knew that was what she wanted. That very Sunday morning, she chose to follow Jesus and prayed a prayer very similar to the one Tass Saada prayed.

In that moment, she was born again. Her troubles didn’t all immediately melt away. But from that day forward, she began seeing God change her life as He gave her peace and joy and a sense of calm that she had never had before.

My father, on the other hand, is not an MBB, but you might say that he is a “JBB”—a Jewish Background Believer. With a name like Rosenberg, you can guess that he was not raised in a Christian home. Rather, he was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home, though he would have described himself more as an agnostic during his twenties. In 1973, about six months after my mother became a follower of Jesus Christ, my father prayed to receive Jesus as the Messiah, and he too was born again. His troubles did not disappear either. Some of them increased, even. But over the next few years, though I was young, I could see my father changing in very positive ways. He was no longer the bitter man with a quick temper that I had feared. He was becoming gentle and kind, a man who loved to study the Bible and to teach it—especially to kids.

My point is simply this: in my own home, I have personally witnessed—and been blessed by—God’s love for Jews and Gentiles, and I am grateful that He does not show favoritism and restrict His loving-kindness to one group or another.

Likewise, in my travels through the epicenter I have personally witnessed—and been blessed by—God’s love for Muslims and for nominal Christians. He is reviving them both. He is awaking Muslims to the truth of the Scriptures, and He is breathing new spiritual life into people who were raised in churches but were long unaware of the life-changing power of Jesus Christ.

And He is doing so in numbers few could ever have imagined.