Yet Another Non-Christian Email Sent By A Christian

Below is a response I wrote to a Christian who sent me yet another email about Muslims. This man and I are supposed to meet and discuss the issue of how we should respond to the refugee crisis in the Middle East and what our posture toward Muslims should be. I suggested we meet rather than attempt to share our thoughts via email, however, his recent email elicited my response below - I felt I needed to say something. 

Jesus was not mentioned in the email he sent. That is true for every email someone sends me attacking Muslims, or Americans who they don't agree with politically. If Jesus isn't our center of gravity then what is the point for the Christian? This poison has infiltrated the professing church to the place where many Christians are not known for following Jesus but rather for following political agendas. We have lost our heavenly identity and by doing so have become no earthly good - that is, we cannot bring the perspective of our Lord Jesus Christ to the conversation because we no longer know the Scriptures or the Spirit of our Lord, we are like James and John wanting to call down fire from heaven on those with whom we disagree. Jesus told them that they didn't know of what spirit they were - such is the sad case of a significant element of the professing church in the US.

I face this temptation regularly, and I must choose Jesus, I must put Him first and last - Jesus and only Jesus. 

Dear Friend,

I read what you sent, but I don't see anything about Jesus, about sharing the Gospel, about loving our enemies, about dying for Jesus Christ. This is our calling. And as for the reference to Armageddon, well...perhaps we had better think about how we should live in the midst of a chaotic world, amidst persecution - we are called to lay our lives down (Romans 8:36 and many other places). 

Anything that distracts us from living in Jesus Christ, anything that distracts us from sharing the Gospel, that is what we ought to fear...and right now many professing Christians are not fearing the Lord, they are playing into man-made fears. 

You see, evil is evil, in whatever form it takes - and we have enough evil here without importing it...but as long as the domestic evil doesn't bother us we tend to look the other way.

And then if our God is sovereign, then perhaps we should pay attention to what He is doing - the prophets make it clear that our Lord rules over the affairs of men and that He uses nations to judge nations - we have seen this in the book of Judges [note to blog reader, our men's group is studying Judges], but it appears even more strongly in the prophets. Jeremiah was thrown in prison and then in a well when he pointed out to the king of Judah that God was judging the nation for its sins - since to whom much is given much is required perhaps we should pause and consider our national sins and the great light of the Gospel that we have rejected.

But my main point in all of this is that I don't see Jesus. We are Christians before we are anything and our call is not to kill for Jesus but to die for Jesus and others, and that includes our enemies.

The Early Church brought their enemies to Christ. There is not one instance that I'm aware of when the Early Church retaliated against its enemies. There is not one passage in the New Testament that counsels that we retaliate against our enemies (I'm not talking about the state, I'm talking about the church).

Why is it that professing believers in the United States think they deserve a free pass when it comes to persecution? We have brothers and sisters throughout the world suffering for the Gospel, but as long as it stays across the oceans we tend not to be concerned.

It is about Jesus, always about Jesus. If our lives are filled with fear and hate and vitriol we will not be prepared when we are faced with major decisions for we will have become conditioned not to love, not to lay our lives down, but to preserve ourselves and our things. 

The conversation should not be about Islam, that is a distraction, it should be about Jesus and sharing Him with all peoples - that is the Great Commission, that is our mandate. How can we demonstrate the love of God to Muslims and all others - Jesus died for them, will we?

Our citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20...and other passages). 

If I say that I will die for Jesus, then I must also say that as Christian I will not kill for Jesus.

Much love...looking forward to our conversation,

No More Fear

My friend Bill wrote the following and sent it to me. This is the Bill who occasionally gives me excerpts from his prayer journal to post. As I read this the irony struck me that he found eternal life on the grounds of a funeral home - in a place of death he found life. Isn't that the Gospel? The women went to the tomb on Easter morning expecting to find death but they found life. 

No More Fear of Dying

Growing up, I was taught about Heaven and Hell so I knew that good people went to Heaven and bad people went to Hell.  I believed that I was a bad person and was going to Hell.  What I didn’t know, as Paul Harvey would say, was “the rest of the story.”  I hope and pray that the following will help others know that God is a loving and caring Father.

For 38 years of my life I did not like myself because I believed that God did not love me since I was a sinner.  Many times I would ask God to forgive me and then would go right back and commit the sins all over again.  There were times when I should have gone to jail for the things I did.  When I got away with them, I would tell myself that I was lucky.  What I did not realized at the time was that “luck” had nothing to do with it.  It would be much later in my life’s journey before I would realize this.

During our Thursday night Bible study recently, we were asked to read Hebrews 2:14-15 which says, “Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” [NIV]

When I read these verses, it all came back to me:  the memory of being consumed with the fear of death.  I was that person they were talking about in these two verses.

I remembered back to the day and time when my life would change forever and the fear of death was gone.

My wife had died and I had two small children.  I was so overwhelmed by everything and I had no one to turn to for help.  I was sitting in my office crying and begging God to help me when I remembered something:  I had gone to a Needle’s Eye luncheon and heard someone talking about accepting Jesus as his Savior and how it changed his life.  At the time, I thought to myself, “Whatever!  Another feel-good story.”  I was given something with a prayer inside showing me what to say if I wanted Jesus in my life.  When I got back to my office, I put it in my desk drawer and went on with my life.

On this day, however, I opened that drawer and there was the pamphlet with that prayer in it.  I thought to myself, “Well, I have tried everything else.  Why not this prayer?”  I went over to the grounds of the funeral home that was next to my office and sat down under a tree and recited the prayer, asking Jesus to be my Savior.  I was crying. At that moment Jesus became my Savior.

For the first time in my life, I had “HOPE”!  My sins were forgiven and I knew He loved me.  For many years I had bought and paid for friends and now I realized that I always had had a friend in Jesus and it did not cost me anything.

All those times when I got away with doing something wrong (sin) and told myself that I was lucky – I realized that luck had nothing to do with it.  God was there and He had a plan for my life and He was just waiting for me to open that door so my Savior could take control of my life.  Once I accepted Jesus as my Savior, did all my problems go away?  NO!!!  But, He was there to help me through them.  Did I stop sinning?  NO!!  But for the first time in my life, I knew with His help and by letting Him have control, sin no longer controlled me.  I knew that God would forgive me and love me no matter what.  Jesus paid the price for my sins and that day, on the lawn of the funeral home, the Holy Spirit entered into my heart.

When I looked in the mirror before I met Jesus, I hated the person looking back at me.  When I look in the mirror now, I like that person looking back at me because I know God loves me. 

My life is no longer a slave to death.  When I asked Jesus to be my Savior, the chains of slavery to death were gone and I knew that I was a child of a loving and forgiving God.

Thank You, Jesus, for all of the pain and suffering that You went through in order that I would have eternal life with You and my heavenly Father.

Now you know “the rest of the story.”