The Crescent through the Eyes of the Cross by Nabeel Jabbour

Author:Nabeel Jabbour
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: RELIGION / Christian Ministry / Evangelism
Publisher: NavPress
Published: 2014-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

CRIPPLING FEAR

The temptation for any Christians living among the mainstream is either to isolate themselves or to become colorless and lose the message. In an earlier chapter, I shared with you how my friends in Egypt and I studied several themes in the Scriptures, all the way from Genesis to Revelation. One of the themes we studied was What is the good news of the gospel to Muslims? At the end of the study the team tried to identify the major issue that prevented them from fully being what God wanted them to be in this area. They concluded that it was fear. So sometime later over a period of several months, they studied the subject of fear in all the Scriptures, and God delivered many of them from the consequences of crippling fear.

Years before the study on fear, I visited Cyprus,[39] and Samuel came to spend a few days there with me. We discussed the situation of the ministry in Egypt and came to the conclusion that one of the biggest weapons the Devil uses is the weapon of fear. It can paralyze God’s children. We thought of mutual friends who had been cornered by the Devil. It felt as though the Devil forced these Christians to stand in a corner while he drew a line on the floor and commanded them not to cross it. It must break the heart of God to see his children cornered by the Devil.

As we continued our sharing and praying, I asked Samuel, “What are you afraid of?” By this time, Samuel was married and had three young children. He said, “I am afraid that the secret police might come one night at two or three in the morning, knock at the door of our apartment, and ask me to go with them to their headquarters in Cairo for a short interview. I know it will not be a short interview but imprisonment for months or years.”

So I asked him again, “What are you afraid of?” He told me that he was not very worried about his family because his church assured him that they would take good care of them. Then he told me that his wife might get lucky and find him in the first prison she visited; or it might take her months to find him by asking for him in every prison in Egypt, and they are all over the country. Then he told me that the food offered in prisons is of terrible quality. Prisoners usually eat only what their relatives bring to them. At the same time, Samuel assured me that he was not really worried about the food. He knew that he could establish deep relationships with fellow prisoners and they would share their food with him.

So I asked him a third time, “Then what are you afraid of?” He thought for a while and then said, “I am afraid that I will get imprisoned so suddenly that I will go to prison without my reading glasses, daily medications, a toothbrush, and my Bible.

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