Like other boys in his Pashtun tribe along the Pakistan-Afghan border, John Taimoor was sent to a madrasa at the age of four, where he was compelled to read, recite and memorise the Koran. One day he stumbled across the name ‘Isa,’ the Arabic name for Jesus. “I read the name of Jesus and became curious,” he says. When he asked how to find out more, the mullah told him to find ‘The Book of Isa.’
Taimoor searched for a ‘Book of Isa’ for two years. When he asked in the library he was met with suspicion. “What are you up to boy? Do you want to become a Christian?” Christians he sought out were too afraid to share the Bible with him. One day he saw a missionary passing through an area north of Islamabad handing out small New Testaments. Taimoor hurried toward him. “He greeted me like a Muslim and said, ‘This is the Book of Isa.’ It hit me like a bullet,” Taimoor says. Hesitantly, he asked the missionary the cost of the book. “If you want it, you can give me whatever you would like to give.” Taimoor fished out the equivalent of 20 U.S. cents.
Racing home, Taimoor underwent a ritualistic cleansing, deciding this would be appropriate before reading such a book. “I didn’t understand it in the beginning,” he says. “But when I got to the fifth chapter of Matthew something unusual and supernatural happened in my mind.” He read: “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” Then, he believes the Holy Spirit fell upon him – and filled him – as his heart and mind were regenerated.
“I got saved without the help of any individual,” Taimoor recalls. “I didn’t say the sinner’s prayer or go to any altar call,” he says. “Within six months I discovered Jesus Christ is God in human flesh.” He set out to memorise the words. “As a Muslim, I thought every good Muslim memorises the Koran,” he recalls. When his mother found out about his new faith she told him, “If I had known you would become a Christian I would have strangled you as a baby.” Several years later, Taimoor’s mother and brother both became believers.
Now, through The Crossbearers, a ministry he has set up, he establishes new communities of ‘messianic Muslims’ in the Middle East. “If I had not become a Christian I would have been a Taliban,” Taimoor says. His houses near the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan are lined with prayer rugs, and have the feel of an Eastern worship centre. Group meetings in his homes can last up to six hours, but he refuses to call this ‘church,’ instead preferring the term ‘Jaamat Rabaani’– which means ‘gathering of the people of God.’ “If it looks like a church they will burn it,” he says. “There are a lot of people in the Middle East who are really hungry and seeking,” he notes.
Source: Godreports; Prayer Alert
BIBLE STUDY: John 10:14-16
Day 23 – PRAISE: God for the extraordinary way He revealed Jesus to this young Muslim seeker.
Day 24 – PRAY: That all over the world, many Muslims will find their true Lord and Saviour.