My Personal Life Journey With God
My personal belief is that every person’s life story is just as unique and precious as their fingerprint.
My story is a personal journey with God; therefore, I trust it can be a source of encouragement for you to also reflect on your own journey with God.
My name is Daniel, and I was born into a Muslim family in Iran, which is the land of ancient kings such as Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes. The land where Daniel the prophet became the prime minister, Esther was the queen, and Mordecai was the court official. Also the land where the king gave permission for the Israelites to return to their homeland from exile. They supported this return and also the building of the wall and the temple in Jerusalem in the country where Christ the Messiah was going to be born.
Religious Duties
My mother was a Shiite Muslim and quite religious. All of her life she kept her religious duties by regularly saying her namaz and keeping her prayer and fast according to Islamic traditions. Unlike her, my dad had no strong religious beliefs. Because of our parents’ differences, my siblings and I witnessed their relational challenges and disagreements.
I have many memories of the nights when my dad would come home late, around midnight, after partying with his friends. He would encounter my mother’s disapproval for being drunk and late, and at times even physically beat my dad. These childhood memories deeply bothered me and my sister and brother. I always thought to myself, I must follow my mother’s path, she seems right and caring. I decided my dad’s path was to be avoided.
From a very young age I learned from my mom how to say the namaz (obligatory prayer recited five times a day) and fast. I thought that was the healthy way to live. In my childhood, I hated when my dad would come home and greet me with a kiss smelling like cigarettes and alcohol.
When I became a teenager, I started to smoke and drink alcohol, just like my dad. It seemed generational sins had genetically been passed down to me. I did not have control over these issues, and every day I was directed toward more darkness and sin through excessive partying, relationships outside a marriage covenant, and all this world has to offer. Everything in my life had become like a tangled yarn, more and more complicated as time passed. In this chaos is where I spent most of my youth.
A Better Life
Finally when I was twenty-seven years old, I met a girl named Esther. I believe the Lord put her in my path. Because of my love for her, soon I decided to marry her. Shortly after marrying, we decided to leave Iran for a better life. We wanted to go to a country where this would be possible.
As we were settling down in Turkey, we realized that living here was becoming even more difficult than before. It seemed we were more confused and sinking into a place from where we could not find our way out. Every day it was becoming more difficult to escape.
The Good News
After three years, a group of Farsi-speaking missionaries who carried the Gospel of Jesus Christ shared the good news with us. They told us about the message of forgiveness, freedom from sin, and receiving eternal life. My wife and I joyfully accepted this revelatory message and gave our hearts to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Savior, the Christ who forgives people no matter their race, nation, or background. As coheirs of the Kingdom of God, everyone who believes in Him can be assured of eternal life.
Since the beginning of our faith, through reading the Scriptures, and dreams and visions, Jesus Christ gave us a deep passion to share the Good News with everyone we met. We shared about the amazing events that had taken place in our lives.
After a while in our home, we started to serve people alongside that small group of missionaries. Our home became a small house church, and in that house many people, just like us, gave their hearts and lives to Jesus Christ. They tasted the joy of leaving sin behind, receiving forgiveness, and entering the Kingdom of God. They started pursuing a righteous lifestyle.
“We shared the Good News with everyone we met.”
Now that years have passed, we are regularly amazed at the transformational work of the Lord moving away people away from death and receiving eternal life. Through His grace, God used my wife and I to save many people from their sins and to walk in the Kingdom of God with Christ as our Savior.
We are delighted to see the Good News being shared through our testimony to many nations and people. We want to share the opportunity to share the Good News and its blessings with everyone. Jesus Christ says in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Everyone who “believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
We hope the story of our lives inspires a passion in your heart to know the Truth. Jesus Christ promises us in John 8:32, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Conclusion and Salvation Prayer
This story reveals God’s unconditional, eternal love for all of His children. God is love—the essential life-giving ingredient that is missing in all other religions, including Islam. This woman who shared her testimony with you was yearning to be loved and cherished, deep down where only Jesus can touch and heal. The void in her life was exposed by God’s great compassion, revealing the death and dank of her own religious traditions and rituals.
Hearts, Minds, and Spirits Awakened
Miracles and visions stirred her heart, pricked her mind, and awakened her spirit. Whether a supernatural healing or a divine visitation from Jesus Himself, this Muslim experienced the One True God who is alive and ready and willing to offer peace, joy, and freedom.
Contrary to the deeds-demanding god this woman bowed to, she came to personally and intimately know the God who sent His Son Jesus Christ as a sacrifice for her sin. She experienced an up-close-and-personal God whose forgiveness is eternal and saw the God of action—Love in action who heals sickness, addiction, bondage, and torment because He loves them.
God’s Supernatural Love
God’s love is far beyond any kind of human love we can ever even imagine:
God loved you before you were even born.
God loved you before you loved Him.
God loved you when you ignored Him.
God loved you when you were sinning and rebelling.
God even loved you before you believed in Him or even knew He was real.
Romans 5:8 tells us that “God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” Truly, this is a supernatural love. When you experience God’s transforming love, you will lose interest in the sins that used to appeal to you. There is nothing like the love of God to change a sad and lonely life into one of joy and peace and hope.
The greatest demonstration of love is when Jesus left the glory of Heaven to come to earth and die for you on the Cross. That day He reconciled you with God, assuring an eternal bond and loving relationship with God the Father. You are more precious to Him than any riches.
God wants to have an intimate relationship with you today! This was His original desire from the beginning. Scripture tells us that God actually walked and talked with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Unfortunately, they disobeyed God which caused a curse that has impacted the whole of history, even to this very day.
Since then the world has been corrupted by famine, natural disasters, disease, crime, and war. Sin causes people to pursue worldly success, money, power, selfish satisfaction, unbridled sex, gambling, and other such evils that leave people empty, lonely, and hopeless.
There is a hole in the center of every human being that people try and fill with everything other than God. But the truth is, only God Himself can fill that hole. Sin separates us from God, which leads to spiritual and physical death. Jesus the Savior connects us to God and leads to fulfillment, righteousness, and eternal life.
The Divine Solution
The Bible prophets and their prophecies point to the Messiah who would come and deliver people from their sins. Every one of the 300 prophecies given about the coming Savior was fulfilled in Jesus. He restored a right relationship between humanity and God that was lost in the Garden of Eden.
There is nothing you can do to make yourself right before our Holy and Almighty God. Jesus Christ did it for you. Acts of religion and good works will not bridge the divide between you and God. The bridge is Jesus’ selfless act of compassion on the Cross where He took your sin upon Himself.
Your Choice
Your encounter with God begins with a choice:
Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! You can make this choice by loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and committing yourself firmly to him. This is the key to your life… (Deuteronomy 30:19-20 NLT).
Choosing life—Jesus—is the most important decision you will ever make. The men and women whose testimonies you read about chose life and blessings. If you have not already made the choice to be a follower of Jesus, God’s beloved Son, I encourage you to say the following prayer out loud:
Dear heavenly Father, You are the Most High God, and I come to You in the name of Jesus. I thank You for sending Jesus to the earth as the Word of God who became flesh.
Father, I receive Your love and gift of salvation in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus, I believe You died on the Cross and shed Your blood for my sins and the sins of the whole world. Because of Your sacrifice, You remember my sins no more and I have right standing before You. I believe You were raised from the dead on the third day.
Now Jesus, come into my heart. Take away my stony heart and give me a new heart that I may love the Father even as You do. And Lord, help me to know You and experience Your love in the way I have read about in these stories.
Thank You, Jesus.