Jesus can transform the heart of even the most rabid anti-Christian Muslim extremist, turning him from a man who wanted to kill Christians into a believer whose life is dedicated to spreading the Word of God.
Assist News Service recently featured the story of Al-Rashid, the commander of a fanatical Islamic group in the Middle East whose mission was to subjugate all non-Muslim people.
When Al-Rashid learned that Muslims in his territory were converting to Christianity and spreading the Gospel, he formed a special task force to hunt down and kill the Christian missionaries responsible for this.
Rashid later found out that a former Muslim, now known as Pastor Paul, was the one leading the Christian missionaries in their area. He learned that Pastor Paul and his team were distributing Bibles in many languages and forming underground house churches.
Rashid hatched a plan to kill Pastor Paul's family. But all their attempts to kill the family failed. "We attacked them several times," Rashid recalled, "but miraculously they escaped."
Rashid tried to poison the pastor's family by sending two women to deliver poisoned food and chocolates. The woman delivering the food failed to do so as she was bitten by a dog.
The second woman managed to hand over the poisoned chocolates to the children, who ate them. Although the pastor's sons were unaffected, his daughter got very sick.
The pastor's daughter had to be rushed to a hospital.
"I was watching with two others from an ambulance near the hospital to see his daughter's death. Our plan was to kidnap the dead body along with his family in our ambulance," Rashid recalled.
But something happened that stunned Rashid. "I saw a ball of light come down from the sky and stand over the room where his daughter was lying unconscious," he said.
To his utter amazement, he saw a hand come from the ball of light, touch the pastor's daughter, who immediately regained consciousness and stood up.
Rashid then saw a hole in the middle of the hand and blood was flowing down from this hole. "I trembled with fear," Rashid said. "I felt giddy and fell down. My friends moved me from there at once."
The vision of the hand with a bloody hole stuck in his mind and he could not get rid of it.
One night a shadow of a human face appeared with the hand before him and asked him why he was "nailing him." It was Jesus Christ Himself.
Rashid was dumbfounded. Suddenly, he realised that Christians were not his enemies.
He visited Pastor Paul and told him everything, including his plan to kill him and his family. Once again he was surprised when instead of showing anger, Pastor Paul embraced him, with tears running down his face.
"I was once an enemy of Jesus Christ, but he loved me," Pastor Paul told him. "He was crucified — gave His life for me – then He rose from the dead. Because of His love I can love you, because Christ loves you. I believe Jesus Christ Himself brought you here to share this love and to find salvation."
Rashid surrendered his heart and soul to Jesus Christ that day and he was born again.
Now, instead of persecuting Christians, Rashid has become one of the key leaders of "Bibles for Mideast," a group spreading the Word of God in the area.
