THIS IS HOW MY ADVENTURE BEGAN ....

I received the Lord Jesus on December 13, 1975. A couple of days later I met two Christians and asked them if they could help me move forward with my newfound faith in Jesus Christ. One of them was a young American named Judd McKendry, who I am still in touch with even unto this day. 

Up until that day I had never seen a Bible before, never met a born-again Christian, and never set foot in a church. 

“So you have given your life to Jesus,” Judd asked. “Do you know the conditions for following Jesus?” 

“I did not know that there were any conditions.” I replied. 

“Sit down next to me and I will show you the conditions for following Jesus,” he said. We sat down on chairs next to each other, and he pulled out a small, maroon, leather-bound book from his bag. 

“This is a Bible,” he said. This was the first time that I had ever seen a Bible. He put it in my hands. With trembling hands, I took it from him. We who had grown up as Muslims have great respect for the Bible as a Holy Book and would never hold it with unwashed hands. 

He opened it to Luke Chapter 9 and asked me to read verses 23 and 24. 

I read, “And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.” He made me read it aloud thrice. 

“Can you now see the conditions for following Jesus?” He asked. 

“Yes, I can see that I have to deny myself, live a life of self-denial if I am to follow Jesus,” I replied,  

“But I don’t know what it means that I should ‘take up the Cross daily.’” 

He began to explain, “Jesus took up the Cross on the day when he carried it to the place of his execution, where He was Crucified. He is telling us that we have to carry the Cross every day; we have to be willing to die for Him every day. He carried the Cross once, but we have to carry it daily.” 

He then said something that burned deep into my heart and soul and remain there to this day,  

“If we are not willing to die for Him, we are not fit to live for Him” 

That is the kind of Gospel that was preached to me. 

I said, "I am ready to follow Him."  

Judd then took me outside the building and gave me a pile of tracts. "You take this side of the street, and I will take the other side. Hand these out to people, and tell them that Jesus Christ has set you free and that He can do the same for them." 

I began to hand out the tracts, telling people what Judd had told me. I had walked a couple of hundred meters, and was walking on a part of the sidewalk where there was nobody around me. Suddenly I was startled by a loud audible voice that spoke from right behind me. It was in English. The voice said these exact words, "This is what you will do the rest of your life. I will take you all around the world and you will tell people about Jesus." 

At first I was afraid, but then I realized that this was the voice of God speaking to me. 

Only three days in Christ; that was the very first time in my life that I had ever heard the voice of God. That was also my very first day in soul-winning, in following the Great Commission to preach the Gospel to every creature. 

That is when my adventure began. In a moment of time the course of my life changed, and I have never had any regrets that I decided to follow Jesus! 

Originally posted on Facebook by Pastor Christopher Alam