Nabeel Qureshi on Islam & Cancer - Inspiring Stories

nabil it is great to have you with us at Christ Community Church and of course people have been told that this is this is not life but we've come down to Houston to have this meeting with you and the elephant in the room the big question on our part as we begin this this conversation is how are you doing we know it's stomach cancer and it's severe but give us an update yeah it was a bit of a shock just a few weeks ago found out and we went from you know all our plans doing all the things that we were going to do all of a sudden everything came to a crashing halt Papa so didn't feel any symptoms at the time except for a little bit of indigestion and some weight loss so to get the news stage for stomach cancer was was a huge shock it's been getting a bit worse now I can feel the pain pretty consistently yeah in my stomach it's keeping me from sleeping my thoughts are probably doing the same thing too yeah but learning to trust God and walk in faith in this time and absolute privilege to grow closer to the Lord to be brought on my knees much more frequently to to recognize the dependence that we have upon mmm it's a blessing in a way well we're going to be talking about your spiritual journey and this may be jumping ahead of this story but as it relates to your health coming out of Islam what are your Muslim critics say about this you know they the word is out that you you've got this stomach cancer you know what's the feedback well I have known for a long time that people were praying for a lot to curse me one person even emailed me and said I've been praying for years for a lot to kill you and now that we found out that you have stomach cancer I kind of feel bad because I started praying before you had children and now you have a child so I feel bad so at least I had one remorseful person who said that they'd been praying that but yeah this is something that a lot of Muslims are going to see and say you know this is the one who is making a big deal about having left Islam for Christ and look Allah is cursing him so my prayer really is that through my through all this the testimony of what of what cry has done in my life won't be won't be dishonored yes yeah well let's go back to the beginning of the story you had a very different upbringing than most of us most who are listening to you at Christ community today your family emigrated to the United States shortly before you were born tell us a little bit about that background where they came from what the adjustment was like what it was like growing up in a Muslim home in the United States yeah so my parents are from Pakistan and they are devout Muslims they still are and so what that meant was growing up my mom would teach me how to pray the five daily prayers I remember from the age of three standing next to my father every day multiple times a day as he would recite portions of the Quran and I'd follow him in the postures and the daily prayers of Muslims pray are memorized Arabic prayers and our family didn't speak Arabic so we had this very high reverence for the Arabic language it was the language of Muhammad and so growing up with all these rituals memorized prayers it set us apart it gave us an identity and we were really proud of it I remember during the month of Ramadan fasting we would wake up and and watch to see if the the moon actually the day before without started we wait at night to see if the moon was a new moon and then we tell my mom and that it was a new moon and we'd start preparing for the fasts and every day we'd wake up super in the morning in the morning too fast and just that excitement that air of we're doing something for Allah and so that was that's what I remember of my childhood it an identity formed around Islam that we were really proud of and excited about and wanted to learn more and grow into well well now your folks you said Pakistani but very became Americans I mean your dad served in the military did he not yeah so my father came in the 70s my mother would he married my mother it was an arranged marriage a few years after he came to America and brought her a rich marriage yeah yeah if I had known I had two girls I could have done that well if you could have I'm not sure I'd suggested but it's worked well for my parents they loved each other so much and they've been such a good model for us but yeah it was they came to the States my father joined the US Navy and I grew up as american-muslim I was both American and Muslim I was taught to be patriotic yeah my mom was the one who would tell me that it was my civic duty to vote and take part in American democracy my father right yeah my father taught me to put my hand on my heart while praying the net are reciting the national anthem so Islam was not separated from American identity for me okay was both together yeah okay well I'm gonna find out right now we're going to find out just how American Nabil is okay it's gonna give us a snapshot I want to know your favorites in a variety of areas okay so it's like speed dating first answer it comes country my favorite food steak that curry not curry oh whoa a good ribeye yeah favorite musical artist oh man well in the 90s that have to say The Offspring sorry I wasn't a Christian yet favorite movie Lord of the Rings favorite sports team well I should probably say the Chicago Cubs this year probably that is still right there is only one right answer there other they're performing admirably I have to say okay favorite tweeter probably Church curmudgeon never heard of it okay check it out favorite leisure activity just spending time with my family okay so you really are Americanized dude I think that's yes parboil okay so now help us learn as much as we can about Islam since that's been your background what role did the Quran play in your upbringing the the Muslim holy book yeah so Protestants tend to see the Bible and impute that same notion of the Bible to other faiths but the Islamic way of understanding the Quran and using the Quran was much more as a liturgical device or a totem so we would memorize the Arabic of the Quran often not even knowing what it meant you have no idea what you were reciting quite often now my mother was very specific in teaching me the translations and so she would but most of the people around me didn't actually bother to learn the English translation just memorizing the Arabic of the Quran incurred blessings for you when you recited it so and you had to memorize portions the Quran to pray the five daily prayers so you have to recite from memory portions of the Quran and that's what the word Quran means recitation so even though it's a book that Muslims hold as the inspired Word of Allah the word incarnate if it as it were Muslims generally don't go directly to the Quran for teaching they go to their Imams and their teachers who then distill that information for them so you're not learning the Quran because there are principles that you're going to live by and apply to your life you're just this is I mean it's a little bit of magic right so it's more indirect than that you're absorbing those principles from the people from the teachers around you and they'll often point back to the Quran but I didn't know of a single Muslim who would crack open the Quran for guidance and say well what does the Quran say on this issue and then go and find history I never saw anyone do that I didn't know that's dramatically different from how we approach the Bible let's talk about Islam central character Muhammad you know what part does he play in Islam now and that's a fascinating question because as much as Muslims would not necessarily know it he is more the defining factor of what Islam is than the Quran so the interpretation of the Quran is always understood through the lens of Mohammed the way Muslims live their daily lives are in the pattern of Mohammed so Muhammad born 570 ad according to Islamic tradition claims to be a prophet around 610 ad when he's 40 years old and from that point until his death it's said within Islamic circles that virtually everything Muhammad did is recorded in tradition called hadith and so Muslims will try to live their lives devout Muslims especially Sunni Muslims will try to live their lives emulating Muhammad so he's the role model right what did he wear how I mean the reason why Muslims will often grow their beard to fist length is because Muhammad's beard was that length he used to shave his mustache so many Muslims will shave their moustaches they wear their pants at a certain height the more traditional Wahhabi sort of stalwart muslims will do that because muhammad was known to not let his pants drag below his ankles and so to the nth degree devout Muslims are trying to emulate Muhammad because he is the perfect exemplar of what it means to be Muslim in so his life is extremely important for the average Muslim okay and so so Mohammed an is the the ultimate prophet for Allah he is the chief of prophets the Quran calls him caught them on the beam the the seal of the prophets and he is the one that Muslims are to emulate now if you ask a Muslim who is the greatest prophet some of them who are more traditionally educated might be inclined to say somebody like Abraham because Abraham was what Muhammad said when Muhammad was asked who is the greatest prophet okay but if you ask the Muslim to respond from the heart who is the greatest prophet hands down it's going to be Muhammad okay what so Muhammad points to Allah what does a person have to do to gain favor not just in this life but in the life to come with with a lot with with Islam's God and this is the central message of Islam the word Islam means submission and so in order to gain favor with Allah you were supposed to submit you do what he tells you to do and this is why the name Abdullah is so popular amongst Muslims Abdullah means a slave or a servant of Allah you just do what Allah tells you to do and that's how Islam plays out if you're going to earn a lot of favor do what he tells you the primary thing are the five pillars of Islam so you recite the Shahada which is the proclamation that you are Muslim la ilaha illallah muhammad rasool allah there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His Messenger that's number one number two is to pray the five daily prayers every single day you recite these memorized prayers number three is to fast fast every year during the month of Ramadan four is to pay the arms you're supposed to pay a certain amount of bonds called a zakat and lastly is the hudge which just happened the pilgrimage you're supposed to take at one point your life just do it Allah has told you to do it you submit you do it but then there's also these other rules again through the hadith that you're supposed to follow in order to be a good Muslim and the more you do good deeds the more you submit to Allah the better your your weights are in favor of your good judgment on the day of judgment okay let me ask the obvious follow up then how do I know what I've done enough in other words if it's based on me doing the right thing how do I know that I've done enough to earn heaven or what you know whatever the Islamic concept of salvation is yeah and what I'm sharing with you is the traditional understanding of Islam modern Muslims might tweak this you know all kinds of Muslims have their own specific beliefs but the traditional understanding of Islam is you can't know Muhammad himself didn't know whether he would go to heaven and he said say to people pray for me that I love would look upon me with favor the only way you can really know is if you died in Jihad if you were waging battle for the sake of Allah Stuart 9 verse 111 is known as the the verse of bargain where Allah says look if you give your life for the sake of Islam then Allah will give you your eternal reward but that's really the only way you can know wow it leaves one a bit insecure doesn't it you can never know in fact there's a hadith which is fascinating this is the the second Calif the one who succeeded Muhammad I'm sorry the first caliph Abu Bakr he said if I even had one foot in heaven I would still fear the deception of Allah well in other words Allah could still throw him into hell if he wanted to you know what's interesting about what you're saying here this is not just as Islam it's some versions of Christianity in in our country where you do do do-do-do and you know we're we're judged at the end of life if our good deeds outweigh our bad deeds we make it into heaven if they don't then were we're in trouble and of course genuine Christianity is a whole different system it's as someone has said it's not do do it's done do n.e because it's based on what what christ is and that's that's what flips christianity and puts on a whole different scale than everything else because within the christian faith it's God has done this for you yes as opposed to you having to earn the favor yeah yeah I think I'll take the gut is done it for me approach now let's go back to your upbringing you're raising this very devout home and as I understand from reading your book and I do want to say to people this is a terrific book I recognized as a New York Times bestseller seeking Allah finding Jesus I couldn't put it down as I was reading it and I hope our people will pick up a copy not only for themselves I passed this on to other people as well working out with a guy at the at the club whose wife had an interest in Islam and she asked her husband a question so he came to me knowing I'm a pastor said yeah what do you know about this I said I've got a book for your wife so gave her a copy of this so I learned that that in this devout Muslim household you grew up and you were taught to see yourself almost as a missionary in your culture you're to spread the faith and so you go out in a culture where you run into a lot of Christians and one of the first Christ followers you ran into that began to kind of push back and and you know maybe stand up for her faith and share it with you was a girl named Betsy tell us about your relationship with Betsy and what you learned about Christianity through her yeah and this is a great question because I saw everybody as Christian you know and when I saw a westerner I just assumed they were Christian because that's how we were taught to see people and so seeing all these people wearing crosses going to church but never talking about Christ made me think hey these Christians don't actually believe their faith but then there was this one girl like you're saying Betsy who was different because she always had a smile on her face which I thought was really weird like why are you always smiling she would she would want to talk about Jesus and so one day she came up to me in class and she said do you know Jesus so the thing was though that my mom had trained me to respond to Christians oh yeah yeah and Muslims believe in Jesus they just have a view of Jesus that he was a human that he was a prophet and this is what I told her I said look Betsy as a Muslim I believe that Jesus was virgin born I believe he's the Messiah I believe that he is going to come back at the end of times I believe that he's able to do miracles like cleanse the lepers and and raise the dead and heal the blind and she had no idea that Muslims believe this so I said for her but I also know that he's not God and she said no Nabil that's the most important part Jesus is God yeah and I said what do you do with this Bible verse where Jesus says that he doesn't know when the end of times is what do you do with this verse where Jesus says that he that it says that Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature or that the father is greater than he is and with these basic questions I was able to topple her confidence and and this is what it meant to be a confident Muslim in the context of Christians who hadn't really understood the basis of their faith so you had fine-tuned your arguments I mean you were you were ready for Christian engagement but then you graduated from Betsy to a guy named David in college and the the debate picked up a little bit more tell us how this relationship with David began and developed well and it had some of the same thing because with Betsy I was really excited that at least here's someone who cares about her God that mattered to me a lot and my respect for her was was tremendous even if she couldn't answer the questions same thing hooked me with David here was a guy who also cared about his faith he cared about his God and so I would ask him questions I saw him reading his Bible one day and I said how do you know you can even trust the Bible and so we started having arguments about biblical reliability that went to questions about the Trinity it went to questions about Jesus deity and a thing that mattered to me was that he would keep coming back he would keep engaging me he believed and his zeal was something I resonated with so you guys are both cranked up for your faith and your having these heated discussions what did you begin to discover about now let me let me scroll through several different topics what did you learn about the Bible as you began to do your own study okay so as a Muslim I believed that the Bible was corrupt you can't trust it it had been changed over time and as I started discussing these matters with David I realized there's a lot of things here there's there's the issue of textual integrity has the Bible remained the same since it was written and the answer is we have so many manuscripts that yes we hasn't changed can we trust what was originally said there's good reason to think that the disciples and secretaries the disciples wrote down the books the New Testament so we have eyewitness accounts exactly first century or soon after the facts right now historical reliability yes do the things the Bible say to that roof does that reflect historical records and the answer yes time and time again we see for example in Luke's Gospel things being confirmed historically through other means that were stated through the Bible yes yeah so you found the Bible to be a a credible book did that surprise you it did you know having heard that this is a this is a book you can't trust and it's inaccurate and you have to understand everyone around me was saying the Bible's been changed the Bible's been rubbed it and when I'm investigating it for myself I'm thinking where are they getting this from why are they coming away with these conclusions and so that begins to open my mind to think maybe there's other things that didn't quite understand sure sure you know again this is not just a in Islamic argument against Christianity I run into this all the time with people you begin to share Christ with them and they want to know about the Bible and say that yeah I heard it's not a very trustworthy book and they're surprised to learn this is a book that's got a lot of evidence pointing to it as historical accuracy and so on so okay go from the bob of the Trinity what did you discover about the Trinity what what did you believe as a Muslim and how did that begin to change yeah so in Sura 3 and Sura 4 of the Quran the Trinity is depicted as polytheism and so as Muslims polytheism means in three gods okay three separate gods particularly the Quran seems to indicate Jesus Mary and Allah are the three gods but even if you don't go that route mostly Muslims see the Trinity as polytheism and that's the unforgivable sin in Islam to test there's one guy there's only one God if you believe that anyone other than Allah is God you've committed the unforgivable sin and so the idea that the Trinity is a viable concept of monotheism Christians had a really hard time explaining how the Trinity was monotheistic but I began to realize not only can that be explained but ultimately I realized the only explanation for love and I wish we had more time to talk about this but the only explanation for love to be a real objective thing can come if God is triune yes you can't have love be a real thing if God is a monad the way islam teaches him to be but that's not because there's nobody love the exact before the creation of of planet Earth and human beings there's you know if God's totally monotheistic there's no one to love right so if you have if you have one God who exists as three persons three separate persons that have always loved each other that means love is eternal love has existed as long as God has existed and so it's objectively real if you don't have a triune God then you have love that is only subjective it was only something that became real when the world was created okay so the Trinity is beginning to you know you're beginning to change your mind a little bit about what about christ's deity so this is the biggest hang-up for Muslims it's did Jesus claim to be God or not yeah and Muslims believe Jesus is a prophet but they don't believe he's God and in fact the Quran shows Jesus talking to Allah denying that he ever claims to be God and so if you can show a Muslim that Jesus claimed to be God that will change their perspective of everything and that was the the major battle for me but when I saw that not just Paul says Jesus is God you know in Romans 10:9 for example not just Peter saying it in second Peter 1:1 but Jesus claims to be God in John's gospel and not just John but natthew Mark and Luke when you start seeing it in the pages of Scripture that changed everything you got a wrestle with it so is he is CS Lewis the famous author would say you got you got to say either he's lying or he's nuts or he's we claim to be but Jack you cannot evade the claim you got you got to deal with the fact that he's either who he said he is or he's not and for Muslims that he's lying or that he's nuts aren't viable option yeah yeah so if he claimed to be God it's a game changer for him okay how about this one what Jesus accomplished on the cross how did that change from you know you're wrestling with this as a Muslim what did you learn about what was a competition whistle I used to challenge Christians by saying how does one man dying on the cross pay for the sins of everyone isn't that like me walking up to the president and saying here's a dollar let's cancel the national debt like it doesn't work how does that mathematically work but when I realized when I tied in the Christian doctrines together and realized this isn't a man trying to pay off the debt with a dollar this is God Himself who has an infinite bank account able to pay for the sins of everyone that I realized wait a minute the question I should be asking is not can God pay for the sins of mankind it's would God pay for the sins of mankind as a Muslim the answer was no but as a Christian the answer is yeah God's the only one who can pay for your sins and that is a beautiful beautiful belief okay and that leads me to one more here you're having all these discussions these debates with David what are you learning about the nature of salvation you know how is a person saved what is salvation yeah it became much more of a thing to rejoice over which is what Jesus tells us right in Luke chapter 10 don't rejoice the demons submit in your name to rejoice that your names are written in the book of life if this is something that clicked for me later I remember it well after I'd become a Christian just calling David on the phone one day I was like dude we're going to heaven do you realize how awesome it is up until then just as a Muslim you're thinking today when I'm fasting did I make sure I didn't accidentally sip any water walls in the shower and you're constantly spinning or you're constantly asking God for forgiveness because you must have sinned somehow or did you accidentally forget one of your five daily prayers and just as constant anxiety did I do enough to do enough to I do enough and here you are as a believer in Christ thinking thank you God well that I just want to love you as a child loving well not be a what during this time this is college right that this is going on this debating with with David what kept you in the game you know continuing to seek I mean why don't you why don't you just blow it off and say okay you got your view I got mine I mean what what kept you seriously considering the claims of Christ in Christianity see Muslims in general but especially you know devout Muslims believe Islam is true especially if you come from an Eastern background it's not just hey you believe what you believe we believe it's we are proud that we are following the true faith Allah has sent Muhammad as the chief of the prophets the Quran is the inspired Word of Allah this is true that's why we believe so it's not a feel-good faith like a lot of people in the West have and so when someone challenges you and says no no the Christian faith is true that keeps you in the game especially if they keep winning the arguments then he likes how is this possible how are they able to outwit the truth and so for me that's what really mattered but also it was my friend right David was my best friend and so I couldn't get away from this it's not like you know I could just ignore the arguments there he was every day in class or afterwards hanging out and so I was confronted with these facts and issues over and over and over again there was no way around it I got the sense from reading your story in in seeking allah finding jesus that you guys had a deep friendship that you guys really loved each other is that would that be absolutely yeah i mean that i could see how that would have a have a pull kind of keep you looking at the same time you're investigating throughs about christianity you're finding out some disquieting truths about islam you know talk about talk about that what are you discovering about the faith you've grown up with it is beginning to maybe shake those moorings just a little bit yeah so islam is something that's very oral it's a religion that's taught to you orally like i said people don't generally pick up the quran and study it for themselves they receive it orally from their teachers or from their parents that's how they learn Islam well when you do that when you teach something orally you're by definition teaching them something selectively you're not giving them the whole story and so when David and I started investigating how to prove whether Islam or Christianity was true and we turned to the Muslim faith I started reading the early stories of Muhammad's life for myself instead of just receiving the stories reading from beginning to the end in your own investigation and that's when I came across all these stories that no one had shared with me before things that made me think why am i following this man well everything that I had heard up until then had been very positive but now I'm hearing stories about you know him being bewitched him beheading hundreds of people on the same day him doing in treating women in certain ways nothing that I'd ever heard before and naturally I kind of said no that can't be true that can't be true but what I later realized was this is coming from the same sources that all the positive stuff that I had learned came from I have to take it or leave it I can't selectively cherry-pick my prophet and when I came to that realization it was it was a real earthquake for me well so you're learning all this truth about Christianity that is very intriguing and and it's attracting you you're being repulsed a little bit by some of the truth you're learning about Islam so what was keeping you from saying I think I'm going to move from this camp to this camp I think I'm going to become a follower of Jesus he was it just I had one more intellectual doubt that had to be satisfied first or were there other things going on that were keeping you from around Christ Community Church we call it making a decision of surrender to Christ what was keeping you from surrendering to Christ at this point this was a decision that would cost me everything my entire family all my friends the future that I had planned out it would change and cost literally everything nobody left Islam in the circles that I grew up in and my mom being the daughter of a Muslim missionary and my father being one of the leaders in the mosque if their one son became Christian I mean not only would that make me sacrifice all my social circles it would drag them through the mud as well it's an honor shame culture and for your only Son to become a Christian man your reputation was gone so am I willing not just to do this to myself but to my parents who've done nothing but sacrificially love me since I was a child am I willing to go to hell if I'm wrong because the Koran says if you believe Jesus is God you will go to hell chapter 5 or 72 of the Quran am I willing to wager that so all of this and of course there's the law of apostasy in Islam which is that if you leave Islam you can be killed for it my family was part of most pacifist sect of Islam so I knew they weren't going to but there had been others around me and in New Jersey that very year a whole family who had left us mom had been martyred for remembers oh yeah so would I be willing to give up all that all this cost I'm not thinking on the front of my head hey I'm not going to come a Christian because of this cost yes this is happening subconsciously and it's keeping me from seeing the truth okay so we know from the fact that you're sitting here that you made that decision so what brought to you to the point of overcoming those roadblocks and eventually saying okay Christ you're going to be the Savior you're going to be the king of my life if there's one thing that Islam a devout Muslim learns from his Islamic faith is that it is that God is the most important thing and with that in mind my friend kept pushing me saying the beale are you choosing your parents over God are you choosing your life over God and I had to at some point I came to realize yeah if I don't actually ask God to show me who he is then it's because I'm trying to protect myself and so I prayed and I said God can you show me a vision or a dream that's how our family always prayed for guidance from God my father always Racine received prophetic dreams when I was a kid and so I asked God for a vision or a dream and through a series of visions and dreams he pointed out to me that Christianity was true but that even wasn't enough either then I then I asked God for a little bit more and he led me to the pages of the Bible and it was in the scripture as I started reading the Bible for the first time and I say the first time because up until this point I read the Bible only to try to argue against it yes but for the first time I'm reading the Bible for guidance yes and it was like literally life it was like the Living Word yeah electric yes um and it was in the pages of scripture that I ultimately decided to make this day on you made this decision you said you feared the cost ahead of time your reluctance was due to what it might cost you did it cost you what you thought it would what would have been the costs of following Christ for you yeah our family has never been the same never been the same since and when I say our family it sounds kind of nebulous but I think my mom her personality was changed forever by my decision to become a Christian my father his confidence was shaken forever because I decided to become a Christian they didn't come to my wedding didn't approve of me getting married it's our family has has never been the same I lost all my friends the social circles that I was a part of and ultimately the Christian faith it just radically altered me so everything has changed but the cost immediately was was pretty much everything now you you are following a profession of telling people about Jesus I mean that this is what you do for a living you speak you communicate you write books and and by the way not Biel's not only get this seeking allah' finding Jesus but answering jihad is this the most recent no no God okay no God but one and you mentioned to me this is a good book to give to Muslim friends who are wrestling with the issues of Muhammad and Jesus and this R I wrote specifically for seekers okay so you make you make a living at communicating the good news of Jesus so you must run into people all the time not not just Muslims but people who grew up either with no faith at all didn't grow up going to church or maybe they grew up Catholic or Baptist or Methodist or whatever but it was an external ritual is to go to church kind of faith not a deep personal relationship with Jesus what do you find is you engage these people what are the biggest obstacles that keep people from making the decision you made surrendering their lives to Christ what are the biggest obstacles I would say obstacle number one is wealth it's people who are very self-reliance people who are very successful they feel like they don't need God they feel like they don't they don't need religion and so pride is one of the hardest things to combat when it comes to showing people their need for it for our Savior yeah so that's number one I think is wealth number two I think is comfort to follow Jesus jesus said literally that you have to pick up your cross and follow him that means you have to be ready to give anything for the sake of Christ and we have just told everyone in the West that the number one thing to seek is comfort get the more comfortable house get the more comfortable car you see billboards that say you deserve a meal from Wendy's today I mean that kind of thing is what we've been telling everyone yeah and what that then means is to follow Christ anytime you refine anyone anytime you improve anything it means stepping out of your comfort zone it means being willing to suffer a diamond it becomes a diamond by being put under immense pressure and it's only then that it becomes released into something beautiful yes and people just want comfort and that I think is the number two biggest detractor from people accepting the faith yeah yeah yeah when you talked about wealth and talked about pride the downside of having a faith where it all depends on God is is that it could seem so easy that you no no no I got to do something to contribute to this and and we like to think that we can add to what Christ has done as opposed to humbly saying I'm broken and I can't fix myself and only you can so I see how pride especially you know gets in the way let me let me turn that question around and we're kind of bringing things to a close but if there are roadblocks there are also good reasons to compel us to get beyond the roadblocks because rejecting Christ has a price tag too oh yeah just a surrendering to Christ there's a cost involved rejecting Christ there's a cost what what is the cost because I'm sure there are people listening to us today who are saying this is good not interested this is fine for a Nabeel but I think we got to put it on the line and say okay but if you walk away from this this is what it what it will cost you what what is that I would give to here as well and the first one is probably the obvious one and that is your eternal salvation no buddy can earn their own way into heaven I don't care who you are you could be Mother Teresa you can't earn your way into heaven you can't be good enough why because heaven is a perfect place it's because God's presence is there his presence can only avoid in affection and none of us are perfect and so it's only by what Christ has done for us and receiving what he has done for us that we can then by his righteousness enter into a place of perfection so that's one but also number two so that's that's you know the next life but on this earth people are lost spinning in circles trying to figure out why am I here what's my purpose what am I here to do yeah the answer has always been built into going back to the Trinity we've been woven in love this whole universe operates in principles of love you have to lower yourself and serve others you have to be humble enough to love others to ultimately receive purpose but you're only going to get that in Christ so why were you made why do you have the passions that you have why do you have the gifts that you have the skills that you have how do you make it click you make it click by realizing who God has made you to be why he gave you these talents these desires and then living in that purpose yes and so by giving up Christ you're giving up the purpose for which you've been created and the way you can live life to the full as Jesus says in John 10 so you're giving up the afterlife and you're giving up this life okay so now pull it all together you're getting me excited as you're talking about it now I've been following Jesus for years but it just gets me pumped up to talk about what it means to follow him so if if people are sitting out there listening to you right now and saying okay I'm in just tell me what I need to do what are the steps how would you explain to them what they need to do next to begin this relationship with Christ absolutely well read the Gospels understand who Jesus says what he calls us to do is to repent we have to repent and this is not a popular word these days but the fact is that we've all messed up and we all know it and to ask God into that to follow Christ particularly anyway I'm going to back it repent means what because we've just seen a silly looking guy with the street corner signs repent repent means repent means to ask gods to forgive you of what you've done against him okay we've all rebelled to ask him sincerely and then to turn around from doing that to stop doing it and to say God I want to follow you instead of following my own heart I guarantee you I don't care who you are when you follow your own heart you follow it down into the depths of depravity but to repent is to turn back into the light towards God and then to follow him and what does that mean that means you know when Jesus says forgive your enemies love your enemies it means to follow him when he says give to the poor it means do what Jesus says follow him and receive the payment he's made for you so repent receive the payment God has died for you you deserve to die really and we all are heading towards death and this is why people always ask me the question why do I deserve to die for having done something wrong look God is the source of all life God is the source of life and if you rebel against the source of life you have incurred death sure it's a mathematical transaction here and for God to say I love you so much I'm going to give you life anyway receive that yeah through Christ follow him and live this new abundant life so repent recognize that true life's found in Christ and surrender to Him and follow him and do what he says don't don't forget that part do what he says yes yeah well no bill thank you especially on the eve of beginning some medical procedures here our prayers are with you thank you for carving out time to meet with us I'm sure that you've connected with many of our listeners who are wrestling with spiritual things and maybe today is the day some of them will begin to follow Christ as you've made that decision for your own life thank you so much it's privilege absolute privilege to be able to share the good news in Jesus as powerful stuff and I think the thing that has impacted me as I've watched it on video a couple of times now is I just remind myself this guy was less than 24 hours away from undergoing the first stage of treatment for a disease that's got a in a four percent survival rate and he obviously wanted to do this interview he really wanted to communicate the truth about Jesus he really wanted you to hear what he have to say so that you you two could make a decision as he made eleven years ago to surrender his life to Christ you don't have to be coming from Islam to Christianity it may be you're coming from an unchurched background and you've just never truly surrendered to Jesus it may be that you've grown up in a church in a Catholic Church Baptist Church in Episcopal Church Presbyterian Church and you've had it up here you know but it's never it's never made it down to your heart someone has said that the longest distance in the world are the 12 inches between your head and your heart and so I want to give you an opportunity that Nabil if he were here in person he would give you the opportunity to make a decision for Christ and I recognize that a lot of the interview had to do with intellectual things questions truths about Christianity and and that's not as much a heart moving sort of dialogue but but perhaps that's been the obstacle to some of us coming to faith we just didn't think the Christian faith was that reasonable and and today your understanding yet it makes good sense it makes good sense why I can't win favor on my own before God but Christ has done everything that needs to be done see the wages of sin is death the Bible says you know the penalty for us choosing to go our own way instead of God's way you heard Nabil say it a moment ago you know when you rebel against the giver of life the penalty is death and when the Bible talks about death it's not only talking about physical death at the end of this life it's talking to stepping into eternity and being separated for eternity from the God who gives life and we got to do something to fix that problem in this life and the fix is a fix that's been offered by God he sent His Son Jesus to take the death we deserve to die not just to come to earth and be a good role model teach us how to love but but to culminate his earthly ministry by giving his life on the cross a life of infinite Worth and and so it can apply to anyone who surrenders to him and says yet this is what I want I want the forgiveness that you purchased on the cross I want the new life that begins when I put my hope and trust in you you know the Bible says that when you surrender to Christ God's Spirit comes to live on the inside changes are made happens from the inside out the eternal life that he gives begins the moment you put your trust in Jesus so what I'd like to do right now is give you the opportunity if you've never done that before and you probably know for yourself in fact if you if you're wondering I'm not sure if I have or not it's probably because you have it yet so nail it down today I'm going to ask you to bow with me in prayer and at our other campuses I'm going to ask the campus pastors to lead in this prayer giving you an opportunity right now to pray from your heart a prayer of surrender to Christ would you bow with me in prayer if you've never prayed something like this before I ask you to join me in saying Lord God I am a sinner there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think things say things do things that I know are offensive to a holy God can you say that there may even be specific instances that come to you to your mind maybe it's a broken relationship maybe it's a sin that you're addicted to maybe it's a flare-up something you've done that's disappointed even you that comes to your mind can you say god I get it this has separated me from you I've gone my way instead of your way and God say this from your heart it's not the words that matter it's the heart can you say from your heart and God I recognize that the penalty of my sin is to be separated from the God who gives life but God I want to thank you that you sent your son Jesus you did something that no other world religion promises to do you sent your son to take the penalty I deserve he died on the cross for me can you make that connection does that make sense to you today to say did Jesus thank you for dying for me and so I want to put my hope and trust in you I want you to become the savior of my life and as we're bowed before God Nabil all also said that one of the things that keeps us from making this surrender decision is that we just don't want to give up control we don't want to as Jesus told us to do pick up the cross and follow him and so I'm going to ask you right now from your heart can you say and Lord Jesus I want to follow you I want to get off the throne of my life and I want you to be made king of my life today now if this prayer is resonating with you if you're saying yet this is this is what I'm praying and I'm meaning it I may have praised something like this before but I'm not sure I meant it today I mean it I really want the forgiveness I really want the new life that Christ offers sometimes it's good when you're making a decision like this a spiritual decision that nobody can see you make you can't even see yourself making because it's going on in the inside of your heart right now sometimes it's good to do something physical something demonstrable that says yep this is what I'm doing it so here's what I'm going to ask you to do right now is you're about before God if you prayed this prayer of surrender to make it a memorable moment for you so that you wake up tomorrow and you say yes I did something that changed my life yesterday here's what I want you to do if you pray that prayer I want you to stand to your feet for one second and then sit back down it's a really simple thing and yet it's a way for you to say I prayed it and I mean it would you do that right now all across our auditorium want to see people yell so you stand up sit back down I know you feel glued to your seat good anyone else keep going just right now this is my way of saying to God I mean it I put my hope in my trust in Jesus someone else okay good anyone else up in the balcony down on the main floor you know obviously the standing up and sitting down is not what makes you a new person in Christ but it's a way to say this decision is genuine it's real I mean it anybody else just quickly to your feet and back down again Lord God I want to pray not only for those who stood and sat back down I want to pray for those who in their hearts they know they pray that prayer for whatever reason just couldn't get to their feet but God they know that they want Christ to be the savior and king of their lives and I pray that this would not just be a blip on their on the radar a passing fancy you know a moment when they were moved that has no repercussions in the life to come but that this this would be something that changes them dramatically God that this would be a genuine decision and for those of us who've made this decision at some point in the past God stir us to recognize how important this is to live our lives in full followership of Jesus we pray in his name amen

Channel: Christ Community Church

Views: 429,488

Keywords: Nabeel Qureshi, interview, cancer, islam, muslim, christian, seeking allah finding Jesus, allah, no God but one, Christ Community Church, ccclife, muhammad, what do muslims believe, answering jihad, what do Christians believe, Bible, Trinity, inspiring stories

Id: NVOTY8fwT0g

Length: 47min 55sec (2875 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 19 2016