TOP HAMAS LEADER'S SON CONVERTS TO CHRISTIANITY

This is a story I got from the Open Doors website and which originally came from the Christian Post. It is a great evangelical story of how an extremist Muslim became a Christian. It however raises the question: do we have the right to turn people from the religion of their birth to ours? We would obviously be incensed if someone from the Muslim Faith converted one of our family. What is the Biblical basis for witnessing to those of other faiths especially if they are sincere and good people? Are not all Faiths equally valid as Ghandi and others would have us believe? Are we not all going to heaven anyway? AK

The son of a top Hamas leader has converted to Christianity and prays some day his family will also accept Jesus Christ as their savior, according to an Israeli newspaper.

Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of West Bank Hamas leader Sheik Hassan Yousef, revealed for the first time in an exclusive interview with Haaretz newspaper that he has left Islam and is now a Christian. Prior to the interview's publication last Thursday, Yousef's family did not know of his faith conversion even though he is in regular contact with them.

"[T]his interview will open many people's eyes, it will shake Islam from the roots, and I'm not exaggerating," said Yousef, who now resides in the United States. "What other case do you know where a son of a Hamas leader, who was raised on the tenets of extremist Islam, comes out against it?"

The Christian Post story says that Yousef, who is now 30-years-old, was first exposed to Christianity eight years ago while in Jerusalem, where out of curiosity he accepted an invitation to hear about Christianity. Afterwards, he became "enthusiastic" about what he heard and would secretly read the Bible every day.

"A verse like 'Love thine enemy' had a great influence on me," Yousef recalled. "At this stage I was still a Muslim and I thought that I would remain one. But every day I saw the terrible things done in the name of religion by those who considered themselves 'great believers'.

"I studied Islam more thoroughly and found no answers there. I re-examined the Koran and the principals of the faith and found how it is mistaken and misleading."

The story by Ethan Cole went on to say that with Christianity, Yousef said he could understand God as revealed through Jesus Christ. He said he could talk about God and Jesus for days, but Muslims are not able to say anything about God.

"I consider Islam a big lie," said Yousef. "The people who supposedly represent the religion admired Mohammed more than God, killed innocent people in the name of Islam, beat their wives and don't have any idea what God is.

"I have no doubt that they'll go to hell. I have a message for them: There is only one way to paradise - the way of Jesus who sacrificed himself on the cross for all of us."

Four years ago, Yousef decided to convert to Christianity but did not let his family know. He still helped his father with his political activities, and his father only knew his son had Christian friends.

"I felt responsible. It was better for me to be there rather than a gang of fools who would poison his mind," Yousef explained. "I tried to understand those people, their thoughts, in order to change them from inside by means of a strong person like my father, who admitted to me in the past that he does not support suicide attacks."

Cole went on to say, "Yousef described his father as a moderate Hamas leader. But even before his encounter with Christianity, Yousef had already become disenchanted with Hamas and Islam after being imprisoned at the age of 18 years old for heading a youth Islamic movement at his high school." FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE ARTICLE SEE THE FIRST COMMENT.

North Korea Today- A Video by Open Doors

Please remember to pray for North Korea and all the countries where many Christian brothers and sisters are now suffering for their faith.Watch this video and hear of the courageous example of how Kim Chul Min,a young Christian in the faith, stood firm in the midst of devastating persecution.The second film also looks at what persecution means for Christians in these countries. These are very short but poignant videos which will make us aware of their plight and encourage us not to forget them.

The Smartest Bird in the World

Watch and listen to this incredible parrot make the sounds of different creatures. He surely deserves the title of 'the smartest bird in the world'. But the fact remains he is still a parrot, and not a wolf, an owl, a rooster, a penguin, a Chimp, a pig, or a tiger or even a spaceship, though he can make all their sounds!At best he can only pretend to be like them. If a creature like a parrot can pretend to be something its not,how much more can we,and how much do we pretend to be someone or something we're not?

I remember reading George Verwer’s little book ‘Come, live, die’(now ‘hunger for reality') in which he had a chapter entitled 'Schizophrenic Christianity'.That really hit home. We can be ‘smart’ and easily pretend to be something we are not.We can pretend to be the great Christian, we can even write worship songs and preach sermons and sing the songs of Zion as loud as anyone,yet our hearts may be very far from God. Jeremiah was all too right when he said:'the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked'.Yet there is hope for us, and from Jeremiah too, when God speaks through him with the words:

"I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
No longer will a man teach his neighbour,
or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,'
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,"
declares the LORD.
"For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more."

What a great promise:Let us seek God afresh today with all our hearts and know Him for real.

What have St Paul and an Olympic Marathon Champion got in Common?

Firstly,they both had a Passion to win something great;Secondly, they had a Race to run, and Thirdly,after completing that Race,despite all its great trials and pain,they finally were awarded the Prize.

See also the runner in this clip who did not compete according to the rules: he's taken away by the police- he didn't train and didn't properly complete the race!

I do accept that the verses in Hebrews may be not Paul's : but surely they share his sentiments.AK

The Passion
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

The Race
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

The Prize
For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

The Challenge to us is to have the same passion,enter the same race and win the same prize, encouraged by Paul who exhorts us : 'Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ'.

One Day after the life of Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Alexander Solzhenitsyn who was a truly brave man and never frightened to speak his mind, died of heart failure,late Sunday in Moscow. He was 89 years old.He was the Nobel Prize-winning Russian author whose books chronicled the horrors of dictator Josef Stalin's slave labor camps.

Through unflinching accounts of the eight years he spent in the Soviet Gulag, Solzhenitsyn's novels and non-fiction works exposed the secret history of the vast prison system that enslaved millions. The accounts riveted his countrymen and earned him years of bitter exile, but international renown.

And they inspired millions, perhaps, with the knowledge that one person's courage and integrity could, in the end, defeat the totalitarian machinery of an empire.
FOR THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE SEE COMMENT