For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. ~ Mark 8:35

 
World Watch Monitor recently featured the truly moving story of an East African man who had actually been a Muslim imam before giving his life to Jesus Christ ~ A convert’s story. In a series of short videos, Tofik (not his real name) talks about growing up in Islamic schools and becoming an imam ~

“In school I only learned about Islam,” he said. “Parts of our teaching were about destroying Christianity. So we did what we learned, by attacking Christians once we finished our training.”
 
He said he was taught that Christians are bad people, and that he and the other students were encouraged to steal from and kill non-Muslims.
 
‘We beat them, attacked the church and burnt their Bibles’
 
“Our teachers would tell us every time there was a new church in town and we were told to go and attack the people and destroy the church. So that’s what we did,” Tofik said.

 
In other words, he was just being a faithful Muslim leader. Then in 2002, Tofik had a vision of Jesus in a dream ~

“My wife asked me what happened in my dream, because I woke up very startled, and when I explained it to her she was scared and said, ‘We are going to be infidels, so we need to pray.’ “
 
He told her which Quranic verses Jesus told him to read in his dream, and said they all specifically instruct the reader to follow and believe in Jesus.
 
Going back to sleep, Tofik said he immediately he had another vision of Jesus.
 
“Jesus appeared saying ‘It’s Me, follow Me. When you follow me you will pay a price, there will be persecution in your life, but in the end you will be victorious. I am with you.’ ”

 
After his conversion, Tofik definitely was persecuted. Once, beaten so badly, his attackers left him for dead ~

“The voice of Jesus himself spoke to me in my dreams about persecution, so I knew it was going to come and was ready,” Tofik said. “For those who destroyed my household, I was initially involved in prosecuting them at court but later I said ‘no’ and chose to forgive them, and leave it in the hands of the Lord, so the people were released.”

 
Tofik’s isn’t an isolated case. A couple years ago I posted an amazing story about an Iranian woman and her mother coming to faith in Jesus – almost against their will. And there have been numerous reports of these conversions becoming a phenomenon – The rising tide of Muslim converts to Christianity – despite the growing persecution in the Middle East and North Africa.
 
Are these people crazy? Or is the gospel really true – the Christian converts so convinced of that Truth that they’re willing to die for it?
 
Have you ever heard Muslims speak with such conviction about their faith? ~

“We need to start by loving people. We need to love them and show them love. In an Islamic context we cannot just see each other when we have needs to support. We need to always socialize with them,” Tofik said. “We need to be patient and slowly they will come to faith in Christ.”