Back to the Future: From Persecution to Prodigal to Pastor and Back Again!

Oct. 1, 2024

Host: Dr. Jamie Mitchell

Guest(s): Alfonse Javed

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 10/1/24. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Jamie Mitchell:  Well, hello friends and welcome to another Stand in the Gap today. I’m Jamie Mitchell, director of church culture at the American Pastors Network and your host. Today on most of our programs, we look at events or circumstances that we’re dealing with in the news and attempt to apply a biblical worldview. Other days, we consider a ministry opportunity or trends affecting the church and in addition, there are times that we interview guests who have written a book or conducted research to enlighten believers. Occasionally we take a program and just hear a testimony which touches really all three of those areas. Today I want to consider the topic of persecution, calling to ministry parents travail with raising their kids and dealing with various religious issues and seeing God at work. Alfonse e Javed is our guest today. His life journey is a unique one and I believe can gain amazing insights for us and inspiration once you hear his story. Alfon is the pastor of First Baptist Church in Metuchn, New Jersey. He served at the historic Calvary Baptist Church in Manhattan prior to going to First Baptist. Yet it is how God got him there and what occurred in his life that’s worthy of our attention. I’ve entitled today back to the Future from persecution to Prodigal to Pastor and back again. Welcome Alfonse, to Stand in the Gap today.

Alfonse Javed:    Thank you. Thank you, Jamie, and Stand in the Gap program. I thank you for hosting me and I’m so glad to be here. Looking forward to what the Lord is going to do through this conversation together.

Jamie Mitchell:  Well, I have to be honest with you, I’ve tried to remain very cryptic about your story. I don’t want to steal the thunder, but let’s begin from the beginning. Where are you originally from? What is your family background? And give our listeners and understand of what your early years were like.

Alfonse Javed:    Sure, Jamie. My background is a little unusual for an American audience and it’s especially for Christians because by and large, when we think about my home country where I was born and raised, which is Pakistan, it’s a Muslim country. A lot of people do not know that it’s a country where there are a lot of Christians too. Not everyone who is Pakistani is a Muslim. With that being said, I was born and raised in Pakistan, but I was born in a Pakistani Christian family. My dad is a pastor. He is a pastor with the four square Gospel Church, meaning a Pentecostal pastor. And my upbringing was a little unique from many of our brothers and sisters here in the United States. In a country where you are not allowed to evangelize or propagate Christianity, that’s one thing, but when it is forced on you, the major or the main religion of the country is forced on you through education, through policies and laws that the country is making, even still today, it becomes really difficult to be a witness for the Lord.

Alfonse Javed:    It becomes really difficult to see the value in Christianity. So I was born and raised in a Imagine a box and in a box you have everything that is to know and you’ve been locked in that box and you do not know what is outside. So that was the box I was born and raised. So therefore all of that, my Christian faith, my Christian understanding was deeply influenced by Islamic culture, Islamic understanding and Islamic allegation against Christianity. So doubts were there, but with that also you have the problem of persecution. Day in day out, you were made to look like a fool who is following a religion or following a God who is really not a God. And in his brain I think about a child who is still developing and doesn’t understand much, and when he sees his friends and sees his classmates acting a certain way, there’s a season of fasting.

Alfonse Javed:    Everybody’s fasting, and you’re not allowed to drink water or food, eat food because that what the culture is. Otherwise the teacher’s going to punish you. When you become a little bit older, the police going to arrest you. So that’s again social dimension. But then comes to political and government dimension. There’s an Islamic law, blasphemy law, where anybody can accuse you of blasphemy and drag you in the street and literally butcher you. That was one of my earliest memory is I was about, I’d say four, visiting my grandma’s house. And I see this guy, the story comes out, there’s a huge group of people beating up somebody and then we find out the reason was and the man is stabbed. And later on we discovered he is a Christian man and they put some sheet around his stomach to hold his guts in to bring him to the hospital.

Alfonse Javed:    But all of this came from a minor little dispute between a Muslim and a Christian man. And the issue was he has a shop in the Muslim market and that’s not good. So they accuse him whatever they want to accuse him of and always is that, oh, he said something about Prophet Muhammad or he insulted other religion, which no Christian will ever dare to do because they know the consequences of that. So that’s the environment I grew up and I didn’t find any reason that why should I live in this house where my dad is every night goes out door to door visitation and whatever it brings, whether rice, lentils, sometimes clothes, sometimes shoes, whatever he brings, that’s what we use. So to me, his life was a life of a bagger, actually worse than a bagger. At least the bagger can live in peace, bagger can have security and people would not bother him.

Alfonse Javed:    But for us it was a regular attack on the church, regular abuse. There was always, always, my dad was arrested so many times he was sent to prison. There was always uncertainty of life, scarcity of food. There was no future, nothing. And then on the other side of the block we see Muslim kids playing. They have everything. Everything is good. They have God who protects God, who provides God, who cares for them. And then this struggle, this tension in a young mind, how do I reconcile these things whose God is really true? God, on one side, my family, my mom and dad are faithful believers who are willing to lay down their life for their faith. But on the other side, I see their God is rewarding them for whatever reason, just to be Muslims because they are Muslim. And over here all I see is persecution, suffering, pain and agony day in, day out, not only for my family but for whole Christian community. And the question was who is God? Is the real God the one who

Jamie Mitchell:  Now hold that thought, Alfonse, hold that thought because when we come back we want to talk about how that tension affected your family and then ultimately launched you in a trajectory that some parents would find frightful, but God is still in control. And so when we come back in a few moments, let’s continue the story of going from persecution to prodigal to now a pastor here on Stand of the Gap today. Well today we’re hearing the testimony of Alfonse  Javed who grew up in Pakistan. His parents loved Jesus. His father was a pastor. Yet it was that upbringing and watching his parents suffer for Christ. That brings us to this story. It must have in some respect. You must have had a love and respect for your parents, but at the same time brought tension and doubt as you mentioned in the first segment, and probably began to sour you and push you away from Christianity. Tell us about that and tell us how your parents handled your rejecting of something that they love, the ministry and Christ.

Alfonse Javed:    Yeah, thank you again for having me with you. And this is important in many ways from my personal walk with the Lord, that the idea of faith of the parents, the faith of my parents is the reason why I always had a strong connection with the God of the Bible. I always believed that it’s not that there was a time in my life when I said, oh, no longer I’m going to believe in the God of the Bible. It was struggle was which one, because as I said earlier, the box in the box, it was defined by Islamic culture, Islamic teaching, and even many of the characteristics of Christian God within Islamic culture in Pakistan resemble very much the God of Islam. So the God that I was introduced to was the God who was the God of fire and wrath and all those things that Islamic God was doing.

Alfonse Javed:    And I was not clear how is it better? But at the same time I knew the faith. So three things, I’m a pastor, so I have to do the outline, right? Three things. So faith of my parents, the fear, the God of Islam and the favor of favor of the God of Islam toward Muslims and the fear of the followers of Islam, the Muslim. These are the three things that changed my life. So first was the favor. First one is the faith of my parents in the God of Israel. So their faith was so strong that they’re willing to lay down their lives. So that created a lot of tension.

Alfonse Javed:    What causes this? Where did this come from? Where is this strength is coming from? So that was my first problem, even though they have nothing yet, they love Jesus. They love Jesus. When I say they love Jesus, they’re willing to die for Jesus. Literally my dad been attacked so many times people tried to assassinate him. Our house was almost always under attack with bulls, people getting shot, all these kind of things. He was put, I think 150 cases was against him, court cases, and many of them were carist cases, all of them faith. So all his life was like this. Yet this faith was the faith of my parents in Jesus. That was one strength. But then there was this of God of Islam toward my fellow citizens Muslims. And I was like, okay, how come they have the favor? My parents don’t, right? Their God is not giving them favor, but their Islamic God is.

Alfonse Javed:    And then this came the idea of fear. As I grew, I saw Muslims acting in a certain way. So one episode early on, I was eight, 9-year-old and we were on this wedding. And in Pakistan in weddings you bring people just like the old days Jewish system, the bride groom will take his family and people and go to the bride house and bring her back. So we were going there and when we arrived there we saw there was a little co over there like in New York City, somebody selling something on the side, it’s dirty, it’s bad, and there’s a cup. It’s a heart brother. So one of our guys got off the bus and took a cup of water, just one water. So he went over there, got a cup of water, they beat him to death. I mean they did not kill him, but almost they killed him.

Alfonse Javed:    This fear struck me and the whole reason why they did that, because he is not from the same religion. That’s the only reason. There is no other reason. And we have seen that those kind of cases over and over again in Pakistan. So I saw this favor of God, of Islamic God to them, but also this fear that that came in my life and that fear got hold of my life so strong that I gave in to this idea that probably their God is stronger than ours. Their God is the one who provides and the one who protects and therefore they have the mics. Therefore they have everything they rule over us, and that means their God is the real God.

Jamie Mitchell:  Alfonse, I want to ask you a question here because I think this is really important. You are now a pastor and you interact with parents and you have this testimony and you can imagine American parents are not going through the same thing your parents and you did with the kind of persecution kind of threats. But still American parents and the parents listening today will have kids that become prodigals or they see Christianity as not working or as the God as the Bible is not showing favor and the unrighteous are prospering. What do you tell them? How do you encourage them today? Because I want to hear about your own parents and how they responded to you, but I also make application to our listening audience today. There are parents today who are struggling with some of these same things. How do we encourage them today?

Alfonse Javed:    I think the parallel is that even though the Islamic culture is doing that, but here our culture is doing that, Western culture may not have that same religious aspect, but our culture has the same extremist view that we are giving into. So my thought would be parents should be faithful, just like my parents remain faithful and that brought me back to the Lord, right? They’re faithful, one, their faithfulness. They actually one, that’s the end of the story of my life. If therefore I’m in faith, I’m leading a church because of that. So my thought is for any parent who is dealing with a disobedient child, a child who has given into woke culture, the child who has walk away, the child who has left faith because they don’t see it’s relevant anymore. Our job as parents is to be faithful to the Lord in all seasons, in the midst of pain.

Alfonse Javed:    But also we got to show Jesus in normal ordinary seasons. So when we have that, I think this is something we don’t teach, but children see and observe. That’s what I saw and observe. It’s not what my parents told me. It’s not what I heard from them. It’s what I saw. And I think that matter to us, it should matter to us parents. Yes. It doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t teach. We should teach them. We should tell them what it is, but it’s more important that we show them. And that’s something I think takeaway would be

Jamie Mitchell:  To continue your story. Now you see all this and you begin to drift. You begin to drift away from the faith. You said you never stopped believing, but obviously there was great tension now between you and your parents. How did your mom and dad respond to you as you began to drift away from the fervency that they so loved and were willing to die for?

Alfonse Javed:    Yeah, I think to them it might have been, again, it’s a culture that allows you a certain level of, I don’t know, synchronism, you are practicing but not practicing. Almost nominal. But I think it was definitely because there was a time in my youth group where people were wondering whether I have become Muslim or I am, because I will defend Muslims, I’ll speak for them and I will raise questions out of curiosity, why Christianity, this and that and the others. And I was searching, right? I was searching. And sometime I think, and I of course step away from ministry, I was more focused on my own thing. And I’m, at some level, I think it did hurt them, but my love for them or my understanding of their faith was never something that they objected. I think they knew that the down I know, but they patiently waited.

Alfonse Javed:    I think this is important for parents to understand too, that the kids can go and explore. It reminds me prodigal, that’s why the title Prodigal, the father waited and waited, right? He didn’t hold him down. You got to do this way and and the other way, he had to wait. So I think sometime that’s what it is. I think that’s what my parents did. And when I did come back and I did show interest in the ministry, when all of those things happened, even as early, I mean as late as what, three, four weeks ago, we were talking and my parents were on the phone call. We were praying for each other, and a prayer was, I am so happy that God called you. I’m so happy that God brought you to faith, but also calls you to ministry. So these things are after what, 20, 30 years later. And that’s the fact. But they waited patiently, waited

Jamie Mitchell:  Patiently. I’m reminded Alfonse by Psalm five. It says, give attention and sound of my cry, my king, and oh my God, for to you I pray. Listen what it says in the morning, I order my prayer and eagerly wait. We are to order our prayers and eagerly wait. It doesn’t mean your kid is not going to have crisis. Here. It was a pastor’s son facing persecution, doubting, having questions, having tension in the home, but his mom and dad, ultimately their faith, their commitment, their fervency and their prayers was used by God. When we return, we’re going to continue Alfonse’s  story. And I want to hear about some breakthroughs of how God began to work in his life and turn him to then fulfill his calling. Come back in just a moment. Our guest today is Pastor Jave from First Baptist Church in Tuin, New Jersey. If you’re in that area, please go and visit him.

Jamie Mitchell:  He grew up in Pakistan in the home of a pastor. Yet watching his parents’ persecution did not strengthen his faith, but cause doubt and wonder and conflict and tension. Alfonse, we need to take a little bit of a turn. Hearing how God began to move you back to himself and move you towards a calling into ministry. And there were some unusual ways that God was working in your life and beginning, get ahold of you, fill in your story. When did things start to turn and where did you see God actually work to get your attention?

Alfonse Javed:    Yeah, Jeremy, it’s interesting that how God works in the midst of persecution, right? So there is this idea in my head always been entering into the suffering of others, right? When I meet with people as a pastor, I desire to enter in their suffering. It causes me pain, but at the same time, it strengthened my relationship with them. And in my congregation I do that. And I think this is what God did for me to turn me away from those doubts and turn me toward himself. So in the midst of all this life crisis and confusion and seeing the favor of Allah toward Muslims and the fear of Muslims in this culture and seeing the faith of my parents in Jesus, I was struggling. But then God did something amazing in the freshman year of my college. This was the worst attack on our church.

Alfonse Javed:    This was the attack when two of the elders were shot, and by the grace of God both survived. It was some amazing, miraculous work that was going on in my life, but I did not know. I step into this situation and I am shouting, I want to take you back to that day. It was 1996, I believe, and I’m standing and I’m shouting, they have taken over the building our house. My mom is thrown outside. My sisters were very young, both of them. Both of them were out in the street. My dad is missing, my brothers are missing, and the bullets are flying from inside out and they’re trying to scare people. There are about 2000 or, well, I’m young at this point, so I think that there was 2000. It might have been just only two, 300 people, but I’m looking at this flood of people are surrounding this church and shouting and trying to scare them, Christian people surrounding and steering them to leave the building.

Alfonse Javed:    Nobody is doing anything. And then I am just a young guy. I am running around asking, is there anybody who has a gun? I’m going to shoot back. Nobody has gun. And that’s my pure hate. I’m just so in hate. And by the time sunset, I was exhausted. There was a manhole in the middle of the street. I stood on that. I looked up and then I said, God, where are you God, where are you if you are? And my question deep down was is that God of Islam or God of Jesus, the God of Christianity. And I’m shouting and I’m shouting, and I said, Lord Jesus, and this is what I do. I mean, somehow everything comes together. And I said, if you deliver us from this, if you deliver us from this, I will commit my life to you and I will serve you.

Alfonse  Javed:   And that was the day I fell there. I don’t know what happened. I fell there and I fell asleep. I woke up in one of the al’s house and there, the reason why I woke up, it was my dad’s voice. My dad is there, my mom is, their whole family is there. And I’m in some room in that Al’s house. I do not know how he was delivered, how everything happened. He told us like, Hey, police has taken over the building and tomorrow it will be given to us. And that day just, it’s definitely miraculous deliverance. There is no other evidence that these people would’ve left the building alone or we would have taken my dad, mom, everybody back. So this changed my life. That was definitely that miracle I was waiting for. Now, that doesn’t mean that God is going to do those miracles every day, but I think once in a while he does that.

Alfonse Javed:    To me, that was my Paul’s experience on Damascus Road, right? This is my experience when Jesus was talking to resurrected and talking to, he was the, and talking to Thomas, and it says, unless I check, oh, come here, put your finger here, cast on the real. Here’s the, so these are those moments that, not that I didn’t believe in God like Paul did. Not that I didn’t believe in Jesus like Thomas did. I just needed that to pull me away from that fear and root me into that faith that my mom and my dad and my family had that peace that surpasses all our understanding. I think that turned everything for me.

Jamie Mitchell:  Amen. Amen. Alfonse, I’ve listened to your story. Couple of things that I think are important for our listeners to understand. Number one is that in your heart, you had a sense of crying out to Jesus. You understood his presence. You knew that he was, but you had to make that personal firsthand connection. And the second thing is, I think sometimes parents, we try to shield our kids or help them avoid pain or avoid difficulties. We say things like this, I don’t want my kid to feel the struggles that I have yet. The real fact is it’s those struggles. It’s those difficulties. It’s those times of trial and pain is where our children and where we meet God firsthand. Now, when we were talking in the past, you related a story to me, and I want you to share it somewhere in this journey as well. You had an opportunity to actually share the gospel with people, and that really solidified your commitment to the Lord. What was that story? Relate that story to our listeners.

Alfonse Javed:    Amen. Yes, absolutely. That was the beginning of everything. I think after the Lord showed me that, as I said that I have this philosophy that entering into each other’s suffering, when God entered into my suffering, it was not only that he delivered my family that day, but as I begin to walk with him, it took me to Greece. And that means I’m out of this box. You see, remember in the beginning I said that I was trapped in box, so I knew that was there in the box, and Christianity was tainted too with that box. So I’m in Greece with the Bible college, evangelical Bible College here and going to this school, and the campus school state invited me to come. They found out if Pakistani man is there, they said, would you mind coming and speaking to some refugees from Afghanistan, Iran? I said, sure.

Alfonse Javed:    I didn’t know what I’m going to say. I knew that my commitment is to the world and I’m going to do that. So I went there. It’s called P suppose, and I began to teach. I don’t know what I taught. I still today, Jamie. I do not know what I taught. Seriously. I do not know. All I know, nine months later, I’m in another refugee camp in Athens and this guy runs into me and he hugs me. First I thought he was going to attack me because I’ve been teaching about Jesus to these Muslims. So he runs into me and he tells me, Hey, such and such a day nine months ago you came and you shared that such and such thing. And that day I came to Jesus. And then I said, here I have my disciple, and he is from Afghanistan, and it was Ali and Muhammad, which is very interesting because those two names are very important name Islam.

Alfonse Javed:    And they said, we have come to Jesus. And I said, oh, now I’m blown away because this is the first time I’m hearing somebody came to Jesus because they heard something from my mouth. I had no clue what God used to bring these people. That just changed my whole outlook on evangelism, discipleship, that I don’t need to carry the weight. God is the one who brings people to the same knowledge of his son. Jesus. These guys are telling me they converted. Now, I asked them, I said, Hey, so did you get that type? They said, what is that? Oh, let me tell you. I taught them immediately, both of them. We want to get that size. I said, okay, I’ll make the arrangement. And I spoke to the refugee camp guy. He made the arrangement for the coming Sunday, but the Wednesday was the day following Wednesday.

Alfonse  Javed:   I was expecting them to be. That was my last day in Athens. I was expecting them to be there. One shows up, his name was Ali, and he said, how did it go? His folk said, oh yeah, we were baptized on the new man, this and that and the other. I said, where’s Muhammad? Oh, when he came out of baptism, people found out we baptized. They were okay when we were believers, but now we’ve been baptized. So they saw Muhammad walking in the ammonia scare square. That’s like a times square of New York in Athens. And he said, somebody came from the back and stabbed him. And I was like and said, no, no, he survived. He’s going to be here. The guy gets there a little later. He has a sheet around his chest. I said, what’s going on? Oh, nothing. I see this. This is a big wound.

Alfonse Javed:    Big wound. Immediately called the director. I said, Hey, this guy needs to go to hospital. He’s refugee. Of course he doesn’t have anything. And I asked him, I said, what can I do for you? He said, can you go to Afghanistan and share with my people about Jesus? That’s all he asked. Not medicine, not a doctor, no money, nothing. The Ali guy was with him. He said, oh, you’re going to be in Afghanistan. Can you also go to Iran as a neighboring? I said, I know where Iran is. You see that moment was the defining moment for my ministry, not by calling my ministry where God is calling me, the hate and the fear and all that I had deep in my heart was gone, liberated. First time I saw, oh, they were blind. Now they see this is the revelation of God that God gave me that oh, they did not know.

Jamie Mitchell:  Amen. We want to make sure that our kids see those moments, that when God uses us, he can use us to help change people’s lives. God does the work, but we’re his instruments. And boy, that has a great change in our lives. When we come back, we’ll hear the finishing up of the story of where God took Alfonse from persecution to prodigal to a pastor. Well, as we finished that last segment, I was looking for a passage of scripture. I found it. It’s in the book of Philemon, chapter six. It says, I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us, for the sake of Christ. For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you. I pray that this hour has refreshed your heart.

Jamie Mitchell:  Hearing how God has worked in Alfonse  Javed’s life. He’s been our guest, this incredible testimony of growing up in Pakistan, watching persecution that causing tension and doubt and question in his life. But then God supernaturally and miraculously shaking him, crying out to God and then beginning to be used. And I liked what it said there, that in the of your faith, the knowledge of God is strengthened. We talk a lot about getting tough to live for Christ in America, but the reality is we have had much of a cakewalk. What would you say, Alfonse to Christians living in the United States about facing persecution and what might be coming on the horizon for us?

Alfonse Javed:    That is a really good question, Jamie. I have reflected on this question for some time, and I think God is doing something amazing in this country, and God is bringing that persecution, allowing that persecution to take place so that he can mature our faith, and through that, he can bring many more sons and daughters to his family. I think we live in a culture where everybody think that gospel might be that you believe obey, and then you are saved, right? But the gospel is you believe and then you are saved. That’s it. And then you begin to obey because you are saved. And I think that gospel is going to become so clear when the persecution comes. And I think a form of persecution is already here in our country, and I think it is sifting. It’s separating those who truly believe in the gospel, which is they believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ being the only way.

Alfonse Javed:    And they believe that is by faith, grace alone, faith alone, and Christ alone. And that’s it. Nothing add on, right? There’s nothing else left. And because they do this right at the moment, they are saved and then they begin to obey because the very nature of God develops in them through the power of the spirit. And I think that is going to become more and more evident as more persecution comes in and we are pushed against the wall to confess whether we are truly believer or not. I think that’s where I am right now, and nobody wants persecution, my friend. I don’t want it. I hate it. I tell you I hate it. And I know that to gain favor with the majority culture in Pakistan, I know that I also try to avoid persecution because I wanted a want to avoid. I wanted to gain favor with the majority culture. Two, I wanted to avoid persecution. Therefore it was easy for me to be a lukewarm Christian or no Christian, or just put the faith on the back burner and just pretend. Right? And I think persecution doesn’t allow you to pretend anymore, right?

Jamie Mitchell:  That’s why

Alfonse Javed:    Persecution brings forth. Exactly.

Jamie Mitchell:  That’s why our friends, when we look at Revelation two, it starts the decline of the churches of Revelation two and three is number one, that they forget their love for Christ. They forget what Jesus did, the price that he paid, and really that is the anchor we are going to have to have when the persecution of Christianity really rise. We’re seeing it, but we haven’t really felt it yet. One last thought, and I just have just a few minutes left. As someone who lives in the metropolitan New York area, you see a lot of people who are Hindu faith, Muslim faith, and the real challenge of reaching them. You’ve lived in those cultures. What word of encouragement do you have for those listening that might have a coworker or a neighbor from one of these faiths, and what should they do to get the gospel to them? Is this a group of people that’s just impossible to reach, or are they reachable with the gospel?

Alfonse Javed:    There is no, when it comes to impossible word, there is no word in my vocabulary when it comes to the faith and the saving knowledge of Jesus. Jesus, it’s not on me, right? Jesus is the one who’ve been saving since day one. It’s been, I tell you in my church last Sunday, a Muslim, sorry, a Hindu lady came to Jesus Sunday. Before that, another Hindu lady came to Jesus. On Easter, we baptized a couple of Hindu background believers. So when God is doing this in my own congregation, I know and I know, I know that God is doing something on a bigger scale in this country. I know that God is allowing these people to get here so that they can hear the gospel, right? If you are in Pakistan, you can’t cheer because they will literally kill you. If you are in India, same problem in India right now.

Alfonse Javed:    There are government sponsored or activist who are Hindu activists. Their job is to bring people back to Hinduism who were once were Christians. So there’s a lot of campaign going on in my neighborhood. It’s the same thing. And this Addison area, Addison is one of the Hindu population, I guess outside of India. So when you look at it, I think people, there is a deep hunger. I see in people. There’s a hunger with hunger. There’s also doubt. People are sick of everything. They are also trapped in that room that I was trapped in. You see, you’ve got to remember this. We have freedom. We can hear about gospel. We have this radio right now. You don’t have these things over there, brother, and most of the world. You are living in the cultural, cultural box. Here we have opportunity. What we need to do is to allow the spirit to speak through us and allow the spirit to work through us.

Alfonse Javed:    Whether that is a Hindu person, Muslim person, a Catholic agnostic, or whoever that might be. If a person is a lukewarm Christian, is no better than a person who is not in Christian faith at all. I think when the church is no longer lukewarm, complacent, corrupt, when it’s no longer sitting in that compromised position, you will see this country turning upside down and it will change everything. Because when Jesus changes us, it changes everything. So Hindus, here’s what you could do to a Hindu man. You can, or a Muslim man, you can invite them into foot into your home. I know it’s scary, but that’s okay. A lot of people do not know what a Christian House look like. They need to see you practicing Christian faith in your family. My first thing always is I ask them to come and have lunch or dinner with us when they see how I interact with my wife.

Alfonse Javed:    But the way they see I’m interacting with my children, they become very curious. Why is he acting so differently? What is the reason? One of the comments just, she came to Jesus, I think on Sunday before Easter. This is another Hindu lady who came to Jesus. She said the reason why she became interested in Christianity, because all of her Christian friends acted differently. Now, she took about nine months before she decided to follow Jesus. So these things needs to be shown. Not only taught and spoken just like parents need to do, that we as believers also need to do that toward Muslims and Hindu, and most importantly, love, genuine, genuine, genuine love. That’s Alf what Jesus showed

Jamie Mitchell:  Us. Alfonse, what a blessing you have been today. God bless you. God bless your ministry. Hearing your glorious testimony of God’s grace in your life. Friends will be back in 23 hours for another. Stand in the gap today. But until then, just like Alfonse had to do, live and lead with courage, God bless you. Have a great day.