A few years ago I became fascinated with the idea of a pressure cooker. It’s something I never used in Egypt as I have always enjoyed cooking and letting cooking run its course. I didn’t know that there was a rice cooker that you put the ingredients in and it cooks by itself. The idea is less effort, less time. 

In evangelizing Muslims, it’s the the other way around. You would have to forget about instant coffee and instant tea. No microwave mindset. To work on the mind of a Muslim it’s slow heat in the same way you would cook rice. It can be done in a rice cooker, but nothing is like taking your time, enjoying the process of cooking. 

Looking at what’s happening in Iran and the pressure cooker explosive events over forcing women to wear the veil, the hijâb, all show that religious beliefs fail when enforced and force is being applied to establish supposed morality. Saudi Arabia has always had the morality police, and recently I have come to see in the news Iranian women dressed all in black and you can only see eyes glaring and enforcing morality on women. In oppressed society where the devil is roaming around and having a heyday everyday it is women who are the source of sin and to deal with sin they suppress and mutilate women. Women and non Muslim minorities always take the brunt of their simmering anger. 

There has to be liberation. People may revolt and it’s good that they oppose injustice. But the greatest need is for a revolution in hearts, hearts that rebel against darkness as it has been night for too long. We always rejoice when we attend Iranian Spirit-filled churches. To be in the house of God they mean business and never forget that they had to pay a very dear price in order to gather together for prayer and Bible study. There’s some freshness about their faith when Christians in some traditional churches are just going about the motions and it’s nothing more than a ritual. One Iranian convert, Hassan Dahqani said that what moved his spirit deeply to convert was attending a prayer meeting and seeing how people talked to God and such warmth and geniality got hold of his heart. The Spirit does His work but we ourselves have be fervent in the Spirit, and so it’s such contagious that the gospel is irresistible and is joyfully received. 

 In Christ’s Victory,

 Timothy Abraham