What a joy and undeserved honor it is to celebrate Easter in the Holy Land, where Jesus of Nazareth traveled and taught and healed and loved His neighbors and His enemies.

Unfortunately, too few Jews and Arabs in this region get as excited about Easter as I do. Amongst six million Israeli Jews, about two million Israeli Arabs, and another four million-plus Palestinian Arabs, only about 30,000 are born again believers that Jesus is the Messiah who died on the cross and rose again from the dead on the third day, according to the Scriptures. The good news is wonderful news — but not enough people in this part of the world know it or believe it.

Then again, my family and I weren’t always excited about Easter. There was a time when we hadn’t heard the Gospel. And even when we did hear about God’s free gift of forgiveness and hope and eternal life, we didn’t all immediately believe it. My parents and I understand what it’s like to be lost, and to feel lost, and to genuinely have no idea that God loves us and wants to adopt us into His royal family.

Today, I’d like to share with you our spiritual journey. In this hour-long audio message (divided up in 5 to 10 minute segments on YouTube), I explain the process my parents went through to come to faith in Jesus Christ, how I later came to faith in Christ myself, and later how I experienced a powerful spiritual revival in my junior year of high school that completely transformed my life. I hope it will encourage you in your own spiritual journey, and that it will be something you can share with family and friends to help and encourage them, as well. Thanks and God bless you.

• My spiritual journey — part 1 — how becoming the author of The Last Jihad triggered people asking me a critical question
• Part 2 — how my Jewish grandparents escaped from Russia, my father’s Jewish upbringing, my mother’s Gentile heritage, and how they met
• Part 3 — my mother’s spiritual journey
• Part 4 — my father’s spiritual journey, and then how I came to faith
• Part 5 — how I learned I was Jewish, and then my crisis of faith in high school
• Part 6 — the conclusion of my story, and so what? Why should this matter to you?

(Photo: The (empty) Garden Tomb in Jerusalem.)

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