And the first time I met a Christian who was ready with that was in college.

So I’ve already decimated the faith of a lot of people going up to college.

And then I get to college very confident in myself.

And I meet a friend.

Now this friend and I were out on a public speaking and uh debate tournament and uh we were sharing a room together and I saw him one night reading the Bible.

And I thought, “Okay, this will be fun.

Let’s take down another Christian.

This be amusing.

” And so I look at my friend, his name was David.

I said, “David, do you realize that book you’re reading is not trustworthy? It’s been corrupted over time.

” And he’s reading his Bible and he closes it and he says, “Go on.

” Which should have been a sign for me that this wasn’t going to go my way, but I kept going.

And I said, “David, Jesus spoke Aramaic, did he not?” And then the earliest church was in Palestine.

It was in Jerusalem.

It was it was in Israel.

So, they must have spoken Hebrew.

But by the time the New Testament’s written, it’s written in Greek.

So you have a translation of a translation of Jesus words before it’s ever written down.

And then the New Testament that lasted the longest period of time in the church was not actually in Greek.

It was in Latin.

So you have another translation.

Then it’s in Latin for a thousand years before it comes into German.

And from German it goes into English.

And that’s where we get the KJV.

It’s a translation of a translation of a translation of a translation of a translation.

Which is why you have the KJV, the NIV, the ESV, the NASV, the who knows what V.

You got so many versions of the Bible, how can I know which one is actually the word of God? Now, that had worked on many Christians and I was ready for him to crumple under the weight of my argumentation.

But David looked at me and he said, “Nabil, let me ask you a question.

Just a few minutes ago, I heard you speaking to your mom on the phone.

Was that in English?” I said, “No.

” And he said, “But when you told me what she said, you told me in English.

Was that a corrupted translation?” “No.

” He said, “Nabil, when you are multilingual, you can take a message that’s given in one language and accurately translate that message into another language and you’ve preserved the message.

” And that’s exactly what the disciples did.

They’re able to listen to Jesus, whatever language Jesus spoke, and write it in Greek.

And of that Greek New Testament manuscript, we have in our possession over 6,000 copies today.

And he said to be if we didn’t have any one of those copies we have in our possession over 10,000 Latin Coptic and Syriak translations of the early Greek New Testament manuscripts and he said if we didn’t have any of those translations we have over 30,000 quotations of the New Testament from the early church fathers with which we can reconstruct virtually the entire New Testament many times over again.

Nibil, we know with certainty the message of the original New Testament.

And I looked at him and I said,”David, you’re making this up.

” I said, ‘I’ve talked to dozens of Christians.

No one have told me this before.

‘ He said, ‘You think I’m making this up? I said, ‘Yeah, I think you’re making this up.

‘ He said, ‘Well, you done.

You better bring it.

‘ I’m like, “It’s been brought.

Let’s go.

” And so from that point on, David and I start arguing about these things, but we do it in a pursuit of truth.

In fact, we start arguing so much that we decide to start signing up for classes together so we can sit in the back and argue with each other the whole time.

We go to each other’s houses and study and just argue some more.

And over the course of time, because we spent so much time together in pursuit of truth, we became best friends.

I ended up being one of the groomsmen at his wedding.

I was there when his first child was born.

All of this time I spent with him becoming closer to him.

And in that, I knew that David would take a bullet for me.

And when you can trust someone and they share the gospel with you, it makes a huge impact.

If you don’t know you can trust someone and they tell you to lay down your life and pick up the cross, why would you listen to them? But if you have someone who’s trying to tear down your world view and you know that they love you, then you will engage with them and you will listen to them.

So that friendship was absolutely critical in order for me to begin to hear the gospel.

And it took a long time.

This wasn’t an overnight event.

But after about a year, I came to the conclusion, all right, the New Testament manuscripts are reliable.

I didn’t believe in the gospel or anything like that.

It was just the New Testament manuscripts.

It took me a year, but I realized the way that the New Testament manuscripts proliferated, the way they were written down and sent throughout the early church.

There was no one who’s able to control these manuscripts and edit them in such a way that a change would not be detected.

Simply no way to do that.

So after about a year, I came to the conclusion that there is no way for the New Testament to have been uniformly and undetectably altered.

Not possible.

And so I went back to David and I said, “All right, David.

I see that the New Testament is reliable, but I don’t see Jesus claiming to be God anywhere in the New Testament.

Now, keep in mind, this is the biggest sticking point for Muslims because like I said earlier, Muslims believe that Jesus is the Messiah.

Muslims believe that Jesus was the most miraculous man who ever lived.

Some Muslims believe he’s the only sinless prophet, truly sinless prophet who ever walked this earth.

But the moment you say Jesus is God, in a Muslim’s eyes, you are committing the worst blasphemy you could ever possibly commit.

The Quran says very clearly chapter 4 verse 171 as as well as chapter 572 that if you believe Jesus is God, you will go to hell.

There’s no arguing with that in the Muslim worldview.

Chapter 5 116 shows Jesus having a conversation with Allah.

And Allah asked Jesus, “Did you ever tell people to worship you?” And he said, “By no means do I have the right to tell them to do something like that.

” And so the idea that Jesus is God is blasphemy in Islam.

and they’re trying to defend God when they say there’s no way Jesus is God.

So the question for me now that I came to the point of realization that the New Testament was reliable.

I said okay fine but Jesus never claims to be God in that.

And now I began to study with a little bit more depth.

I began to try to look at things.

My friend David first handed me the Gospel of John.

He said here read this.

And as I read the Gospel of John, John 1 verse one says that Jesus is God.

Don’t have to go too far.

In the beginning was the word.

The word was with God and the word was God.

Well, what is the word? You go down to verse 14.

The word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory.

I’m looking at these sets of verses and I’m trying to find a way around this because again from childhood I’ve been told Jesus couldn’t be God and now that I believe the New Testament is reliable, how could it possibly say this? So, the way I defended that was by saying, “Well, Jesus isn’t saying he’s God here.

This is John the author.

I want to see Jesus say he’s God.

” Then as you go through the Gospel of John, you see things that Jesus says.

Like in John 8:58, some Jews ask him.

They say, “You’re not even 50 years old, yet you claim to have seen Abraham.

” And Jesus response is, “Amen.

Amen.

” Before Abraham was born, I am.

Now, you know, when you’re Muslim, you haven’t heard the term I am before.

You don’t know what that means.

But when someone points you to Exodus 3:14, where God tells Moses that his name is Anohoo, I am that now it begins to make sense what Jesus is saying.

Someone asks him, “You’re not even 50 years old.

” Jesus response is, “I am.

I eternally exist.

” Even before Abraham was born, yes, because he’s taking the name of the God of Moses.

It’s pretty clear.

And by the way, if there are any Muslims listening and thinking that’s not convincing enough, go to John 20:28 where someone calls Jesus God.

And Jesus response is basically finally took you long enough.

So then my response to that was, well, forget the Gospel of John.

It was written too late.

That’s not reliable.

I want to go to the first gospel.

I want to see where it was written early on.

Did Jesus claim to be God? Fortunately, I don’t have all the time to go into the details here, but I will tell you this.

The culmination of Mark’s gospel, the very first gospel ever written is Mark 14:62.

And in this one verse, Jesus makes two, if not three references to the Old Testament, saying, “I am the God of Moses.

I am the God of Daniel.

I am the God of David.

” And he does it so clearly that the high priests immediately tear their robes and say, “You have heard the blasphemy.

What shall we do?” And that’s the reason why they decided to crucify him.

and they would have been right to crucify him if he were God.

So Jesus claims to be God.

Now imagine what this is doing to my mind because I as a Muslim have now come to the conclusion that the New Testament is reliable and in that New Testament I’m seeing Jesus claim to be God.

This makes everything I’ve ever been taught about Islam false because we’re supposed to rever Jesus.

But here’s evidence he claimed to be God.

How can I do that? And this cognitive dissonance began to drive me nuts.

Up until this point, I was just arguing with my friend David.

But now I come to the realization that this investigation may very well determine the course of my life.

And so I start praying fervently.

And in the middle of these prayers, I go back to my friend David and I say, “Well, I need to have a case.

I need to have good solid reasoning for what would make Christianity true.

” Because Christians believe all kinds of things.

There’s different denominations.

Some Christians believe this, some Christians believe that.

What is the thing that would make the core of Christianity true? And I found it in Romansap 10:9.

Paul says, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

” You didn’t know there was going to be a pop quiz involved.

Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.

You will be saved.

Jesus has to be God.

He has to die on the cross and then rise from the dead for Christianity to be true.

Now, this is actually a very interesting case.

By the time I was wrestling with some of these things, I was in medical school.

As a fourth year medical student, I spent a lot of time in the psychiatry ward.

Spent a lot of time working in the psychiatry ward.

And while I was there, I used to see people come up and say to me in delusions of grandeur, “Nabil, I am God.

” And my response to them would be, “Well, we have a room for you.

Come on in.

” That to claim to be God is pathological.

And in the first century, if someone claims to be God, it’s the same response.

you are crazy.

But if that man then says, “No, wait, watch.

I will be killed and on the third day I will rise from the dead and that’s my proof for you that I am God.

” Now we have something to watch.

Now we have something to see.

The resurrection is the vindication of Jesus claim to be God.

Anybody can claim to be God, but if someone claims to be God and then proves it by rising from the dead, then there’s someone to believe.

So the question is, is there evidence that Jesus rose from the dead? Again, if some people want to ask questions about this or if it wants to come up in the Q&A, then we can discuss it a little bit more.

But as I investigated the evidence surrounding Jesus’ death, I came to the conclusion that the evidence pointed uniformly to the fact that Jesus rose from the dead.

Now, there’s something very profound in that because as a Muslim, the Quran doesn’t even let you believe that Jesus died on the cross.

The Quran says in surah which is chapter 4 verse 157 he was not killed nor was he crucified but so it appeared to them.

So the Quran denies that Jesus was killed by crucifixion.

But if you study the history of Jesus life I’m not talking about Christians studying the history of Jesus life.

I’m talking about atheist skeptical agnostic scholars like Paula Frederickson like Marcusborg like Bartman.

none of whom are Christians.

All of them say if we can know anything about Jesus life, it’s that he died by crucifixion under Pontius Pilate.

The death of Jesus is the most solid fact regarding his life historically speaking.

And that alone challenges the truth of the Quran.

And as a Muslim, I had to really wrestle with that.

And then I have all this evidence that he actually rose from the dead.

If you want some of that evidence, I would suggest you read a book called The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Gary Habbermass and Mike Lacona.

So, I’m seeing this evidence and I’m seeing a case for Jesus deity and for Christianity being built up.

So, by the way, this has taken three years of friendship with David to get to this point, not an overnight quest.

So, David and I are going home from a very manly place.

We were at a smoothie bar.

On the way back, David asks me, he says, “Nabil, we’ve been looking into this for quite a while.

Where do you think the case for Christianity falls? From 0 to 100, if zero was absolutely not true and 100 was absolutely true, where do you think the case for Christianity stands?” I investigate.

I I just thought about each criterion there.

Well, it’s 99% sure Jesus died on the cross.

About 90% sure he claimed to be God.

90% sure he rose from the dead.

I’m putting it at 80 to 85% David.

And he about spits out the smoothie, which is not cool cuz it was my car.

And he looks at me and he says, “Nabil, why don’t you accept the gospel then?” And I said, ‘David, it’s because I’m 100% sure in Islam, even if I’m 80 to 85% believing in the case of Christianity, the case for Islam is stronger.

And he looked at me and he said, “Nabil, you haven’t even looked critically at the case for Islam.

” And I said, “I know, but I’m just that certain.

I’ve heard evidences of the Quran from childhood.

I’ve heard evidences of Muhammad from childhood.

I am certain that Islam is true.

” And he says, “Well, put it to the test.

” And here’s the critical thing.

He says, “Test it to the same degree you tested Christianity.

The same level of skeptic skepticism.

Apply the same historical criteria and then tell me what you end up with.

” And I was very confident.

I said, “Sure, no problem.

” And so I applied the same level of skepticism historically speaking.

I’m going to have to be brief.

But here’s what I found.

When it came to Jesus, I was extremely skeptical of the Gospel of John, for example, because John’s Gospel, according to critical scholars now, not according to Christians, but according to critical scholars, John’s gospel is written between 60 and maybe at the latest 70 years after Jesus death.

And so, I was critical of John’s gospel.

The first time anyone wrote anything about Muhammad’s life was 150 years after his death.

And then the person who wrote it, actually that book was lost.

And what we have is somebody else who saved portions of that book and said I only saved a portion of this book because the rest of it I felt was just unbelievable.

So the first piece of evidence we have on Muhammad’s life comes much much later than the first evidence we have on Jesus life and it was claimed by the person who saved it to have been unreliable.

And I began doing the sidebyside comparison.

Okay, what’s the history of the Quran compared to the Bible? Okay, what’s Muhammad’s life look like? Now, I had been taught from childhood that Muhammad was the most amazing man who ever existed.

I had been taught that Muhammad was a great statesman, a great diplomat, a great general, a great leader.

I’d been taught that he was a great husband and a defender of women’s rights and a defender of the downtrodd.

And that’s how Muslims see Muhammad.

And so, when you see Muslims revering Muhammad, that’s the man they’re revering, this legendary great man.

But when I studied the historical evidence, not only was it late and not really reliable, but when I actually looked at what it said, that Muhammad in the pages of history was very different from the Muhammad in the hearts of Muslims.

And I realized I had to pick one or the other.

And if I was going to be honest and I was going to follow David’s challenge and apply critical historical criteria, this was the Muhammad I’d have to believe existed, a violent one.

And so I said, “Okay, I can’t rely on Muhammad then.

Maybe I have to rely on the inspiration of the Quran.

” Because Muslims believe in the shahada.

In order to become Muslim, you have to believe in the shahada, which is Muhammad Allah.

There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger.

So there’s no God but Allah.

And I tried to defend that through the Quran.

And Muhammad is his messenger.

I tried to defend that by investigating his life.

This part didn’t work.

So I then turned to the Quran and I started saying, “Well, the Quran must be the word of God.

” And I went to all the apologetic reasons that I’d been given from childhood as to why the Quran is the word of God.

I’d been told the Quran had never changed.

I’d been told that the Quran had miracles inside it, miraculous scientific knowledge.

I had been told that the Quran had uh prophecies of the future.

And as I began to investigate each and every single one of these claims again with the same critical eye that I used on Christianity, it began to crumble.

And when you apply, and I will say this now after having looked at many different worldviews, when you apply the same level of skepticism to Christianity to any other worldview, Christianity comes out on top every single time.

And I’m talking way on top.

I had a conversation just the other day with some friends at Oxford who were atheists and they were telling me Nabil, I have issues with Christianity here, here, here, and here.

And I said, I see that, but apply those same skeptic skeptical criticisms to atheism.

And all of a sudden, a look of realization dawned upon them because they were beginning to compare.

And as Oz Guinness says, contrast is the mother of clarity.

And when I compared Islam to Christianity, I realized Christianity came way on top.

Now, this is when my world fell into crisis because I couldn’t just all of a sudden accept the gospel.

If I were to do that, then I would be bringing tremendous shame upon my family.

And Muslim families often come from honor shame backgrounds.

So to give you an idea, everything my grandfather did, everything my great-grandfather did in preaching Islam was to build honor and and pride in the community.

And if their grandson, if their greatgrandson became Christian, then it’s as if I leveled all the honor they ever gained in their entire lives.

And it’s not just me who’s going to be looked at with shame from my family.

my family, my mother and father who spent their whole lives pouring into me.

If I become a Christian, I’m bringing shame to them and I drag their reputation through the mud and now their lives are destroyed because of my decision.

And so these kinds of considerations make it extremely difficult for a Muslim to consider becoming a Christian.

On top of that, there is something called the law of apostasy in Islam.

Traditionally speaking, and to to be a little bit more specific, all four schools of traditional Sunni Islam and all three major schools of traditional Shia Islam teach that if you leave Islam, you can be killed in various circumstances.

They disagree on the circumstances, but they all agree that it can happen.

And so, a Muslim has to think about maybe giving up his social life for sure, and maybe even destroying his family’s social life.

and then maybe even giving up your life itself because of the law of apostasy.

And then if you’re wrong about all this, the Quran says you’re going to hell.

Everything literally is balanced and it makes it extremely difficult for someone to leave Islam.

So at this point, I fell to my knees and started asking God in the daily prayers, outside of the daily prayers, I’m asking God, God, I need you to reveal yourself to me.

I I have looked and it looks like Islam is not true.

Please forgive me for saying that and it looks like Christianity might be true.

Please forgive me for saying that.

Can you tell me who you are? Now to give you a little bit of understanding and insight into Islamic culture.

The veil is not torn down the way Christians believe.

According to Islam, the veil is still up.

Muslims don’t commune with God.

Even the prophets didn’t commune with God.

The prophets spoke to angels who spoke to God.

So Muslims aren’t ready to just receive information from God.

They’re not of that kind of status.

They don’t think so anyway.

But there’s one way that Muslims expect to hear directly from God.

Anyone know dreams? Muslims believe that they can receive dreams from God for guidance.

And so they ask God for dreams for guidance.

There’s a special type of prayer called salatist where Muslims specifically get on their knees and say, “God, guide me through dreams.

” My dad chose his jobs based on those.

My sister chose her husband based on dreams.

Uh we we decided when to move based on dreams.

And by the way, some of these dreams became prophetically true.

For example, my mother uh when she got married to my father, she had a dream that she was planting four seeds in the ground and two of those seeds grew up into trees and two did not.

She goes to my aunt and she says, “I just had this dream.

” And my aunt says to her, “Blessed are you, for God has already told you that you will be pregnant four times and you will have two children and two miscarriages.

” Fast forward 17 years.

That’s exactly what happened.

I’ve got some creepy stories I could share with you, but we don’t have enough time.

This happens very regularly.

Now, why does it happen? Could be a variety of reasons.

Is it God giving the dreams? Is it something else giving the dreams? It could be a variety of things.

That’s not my point.

My point is that Muslims expect to hear from God based on dreams.

And on the face of it, they have good reason to believe that.

And so, I asked God for dreams and visions.

And I ultimately received one vision and three dreams.

I’ll give you the second dream because that was the one that was most powerful for me.

I wanted something very clear and God gave me a very clear dream.

By the way, at this point, it’s been about 4 years since David and I started discussing Christianity and Islam.

In this dream, I’m standing at the threshold of a narrow door.

This door is just wide enough to fit me, just tall enough to fit me.

And there’s some depth to it, maybe five or seven feet.

It’s made of brick, an archway kind of.

And as I look into that doorway, there’s a room set with a feast.

Round tables, people sitting at this feast.

the food is has been put out and people are in fine clothes.

It’s like a wedding feast and they’re about to start eating, but they haven’t started yet.

They’re all looking that direction.

They’re waiting for the owner or the speaker or whoever to come and start this feast.

And I want to get into that room because I know that that room is heaven, but I can’t because at the other end of the doorway is my friend David.

He’s also sitting and waiting.

He’s not looking at me, but he’s kind of blocking the way.

I can’t get past him.

And so I say to him in the dream, “I thought we were going to eat together.

” And he says, “You haven’t responded.

” And in the dream, I knew that I had to respond to David’s invitation in order to get into heaven.

But here’s where it gets crazy.

When I woke up, I called David and I asked him, “What do you think this dream means?” And it was the first time I heard someone’s eyes roll over the phone.

And he says, “Nabil, this dream is so clear, I don’t need to interpret it for you.

Just go to the Bible.

” And I said, “What do you mean?” He says, “Go to Luke chapter 13.

” Now, David knew his scriptures, by the way, and he had given me a Bible, a study Bible.

And when I turned to Luke chapter 13, it said in big, bold letters, the narrow door.

Now, the moment I saw that, my heart skipped a beat because that was the most powerful symbol in my dream.

And I started reading.

I’m going to paraphrase it for you.

And basically, here’s what it says.

Jesus was going through the towns and villages preaching the good news.

And the disciples asked him, “Lord, are many going to be saved?” And he said, “Make every effort to enter through that narrow door.

For many, I tell you, will try and few will be able.

And you will see people sitting inside at the wedding feast of heaven.

Make every effort to enter before the owner comes and closes that door.

I had never read this section of the Bible before.

And I knew God had given me a dream where he placed me right into the middle of this parable.

And he told me where I stood.

So I looked up at God and I said, “God, I need another dream.

Don’t judge me, Christians.

” So I asked for another dream.

God gave me another dream.

And then at the end of that summer, I remember driving to school.

By this point, I’m in my starting my second year of medical school.

The first conversation I had with David was my freshman year of college.

And so, I’m starting my second year of med school.

But at this point, I’ve had three dreams.

I have all this evidence.

I have guidance from God, yet I haven’t converted.

And this is the reason why.

As I’m driving to school, I say to God, “God, I know what I need to do, but I need time to mourn.

I need time to mourn.

By the way, I’m just crying.

I’m just losing it in the car.

Not a good state to go to school in.

So, I go back to my apartment and I don’t know what I’m doing.

So, I pull out the Quran and the Bible and I say, “God, just give me comfort.

” And I open up the Quran and I start reading it.

For the first time in my life, I start reading the Quran, not for lurggical reasons, but for personal guidance.

And as I’m looking for comfort, I realized there is not a single verse in the Quran designed to to comfort a hurting man.

Not one.

And so I realized this book didn’t even apply to my life and I put it away and I turned to the Bible.

I said, “I don’t even know where to start in the Bible.

” I’d never gone to it for personal guidance either.

I just gone to it to try to tear it down.

And so I say, “Fine, I’ll just start with the New Testament.

” Opened it to Matthew chapter 1.

Saw a bunch of genealogies.

So I skipped them.

I had an excuse.

I was a Muslim.

I don’t know what your excuse is.

I skipped them.

It didn’t take me long to get to Matthew chapter 5 where it says, “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.

” And when I saw those words, it was like electric on the page and it like jumped off the page and started my heart.

That’s what it felt like.

As I’m reading these words, I’m thinking, “Jesus said that for me.

” Forget you guys.

He said that for me 2,000 years ago.

And I start I honestly start reading this and every single verse I start reading, I begin to feel like I’m having a conversation with the Bible.

I ask God a question like, “God, how do I know you can hear my prayers?” And then I read the footnote on the study Bible.

It says, “If you want to know God can hear your prayers, go to 1 John 5.

” Sweet.

Boom.

And so I’m reading the Bible, going back and forth.

And I finally get to Matthew chapter 10.

Matthew chapter 10 says, “He who proclaims me before the people of this world, I will proclaim before my father in heaven.

And he who denies me before the people of this world, I will deny before my father in heaven.

” See, I had all the evidence that I needed.

I had all the spiritual guidance I had asked for and now I had emotional comfort through the word knowing it was the word of God but I hadn’t proclaimed.

I looked at God and I said God if if I do this though I have to give up my family.

Matthew chapter 10’s next verses you want to know what they are? He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.

As I read that I said God it’s not just my parents though it’s my whole life.

What the next verses say? He who is not willing to pick up his cross and follow me is not worthy of Yeah.

God knows the cost.

The cost that Muslims have to pay today.

The cost that you might have to pay if you’re listening to this is not a new cost.

It’s the cost the disciples had to pay from the very beginning.

It’s the cost we all must be ready to pay if we’re going to follow Jesus.

And so I got on my knees and I prayed something.

No one had told me about the sinner’s prayer.

prayed something that sounded very Muslim, but uh I did say, “Lord, I believe you are Jesus and I submit to you and I thank you for having taken my sins, died on the cross, and risen from the dead.

I want to follow you with my life.

” And that moment I had intellectually ascented to the gospel.

But I don’t think I had really grasped the gospel quite yet.

That wasn’t until a few days later when I saw my father cry for the first time in my life.

My father was a 24-year veteran of the US Navy.

To me, he was like my archetype of strength.

He was like my Superman.

And here’s what he said to me.

And this is all he said.

Nibil, today I feel as if my backbone has been ripped out from inside me.

And my mother didn’t say a word.

It was like there was a light that had been in her eyes up until that day, and I just turned it off.

She hasn’t been the same since.

And after that conversation with them, I just fell on my knees and just started saying to God, “God, why didn’t you kill me? Why didn’t you kill me, God? Because before they found out, I was a believer.

I was saved.

I would go to heaven if you killed me.

I’d be happy.

You’d be happy.

They’d be happy.

We’d all be happy if you just killed me.

Before I had to tell them, “Why didn’t you kill me?” And in that moment, you know how you get when sometimes you’re crying, you just start repeating stuff.

I’m just like, “Why didn’t you kill me? Why didn’t you give me all kinds of stuff coming out of my face? I got like saliva and tears and mucus and I’m just, God, why didn’t you kill me?” And as I’m saying that, repeating that, “Why didn’t you kill me? Why didn’t you kill me? I heard these words because this is not about you.

And in that moment, my life, my theology, my everything was just rebooted.

And I stood up from there and I walked outside.

By the way, this is I had been crying all night.

So, this is the next morning.

I walk outside and I know this sounds cliche, but it’s true.

Everything looked different.

Everything looked different.

It was the same apartment, the same tree, the same street, but it all looked different.

And the one thing that looked the most different was when I saw someone walking across the street.

Now, I’d seen that millions of times before, but for the first time, I realized that’s not just someone.

That’s someone that God was willing to die for.

Can you I mean, think about this.

As a Muslim, my whole life, I believe that God sat on his throne and he would never enter into this world and he ruled us from above and he gave us a bunch of things to do and he would judge us at the end of time.

But this story is that God was willing to enter into this world in a filthy world.

And he was willing to to live as a carpenter, bluecollar laborer, and he’s willing to live with people who would ultimately betray him.

And then he’s willing to go to a cross and suffer and die for the sake of sinners.

Our God who created the universe, all the stars in the sky, he just thought them into existence.

That God is willing to die.

And as he tells us that he loves us so much, he’s willing to die for us.

This is what he says.

As I have loved you, so love one another.

And if I’m willing to watch someone walk across the street and let them go about their day and I’m not willing to love them so much that I’m ready to die for them, then how am I following Jesus? What does it mean to follow Jesus if he’s willing to die for people who sinned against him and I’m not? How am I a follower of Jesus? And in that moment, I realized what the gospel was.

The gospel is not something that you just hear and believe.

If it doesn’t change your life, it hasn’t hit you yet.

And in that moment, I realized that this God is worth everything.

This story is worth sharing with our lives.

Oh, and our lives are in his hands.

And if we die today, we’re going to be taken care of.

But there are millions, in fact, billions of people for whom that is not the case.

And if we lived every second of our lives for their sakes, only then would we truly honor this God who was willing to live the life we should have lived to die the death that we should have died.

That’s our God and that’s my story.

So let’s pray together.