We have seen that knowing Jesus IS part of your heritage, whether you are from the Middle East or North Africa, India, Europe, America, or most parts of the earth. My part may have been known as Christendom because the duration of the influence lasted longer. But people have been sent to all, with testimony of His faithfulness.
Those voices have been silenced. By fear: intimidation, ridicule, threats of all sorts both in your countries and in ours. The desire has been to appear cool, to not lose the respect of intellectualism. We have been taught by our media that only the religious are hypocrites, full of bigotry and such narrowmindedness that any open hearted child would not desire to grow up to emulate them. Even if it cost him rejecting the teaching of his parents, the culture of his upbringing, and a wall that separates him from and breaks his parent's hearts.
Originally I was going to post a challenge to free your people. Let your sisters, brothers, fathers, mothers, neighbors, and friends, have the freedom to speak their minds. Let their hearts explore, let them seek truth, and proclaim it wherever they might find it. Tell your friends they may seek and find without threat of losing their hands and feet or necks. Tell your neighbor he may have visitors without fear of having his home confiscated, his wife and children enslaved because they dared to read and study the Bible-something Mohammed said he allowed. Tell your brother he may name Jesus as His Savior without losing his inheritance. Inform your uncle that he may seek peace in his old age, peace that has escaped him for all his years of seeking Islam. That he might die with assurance of having his sins forgiven, and knowing where he is going.
A faith that must be forced on a people is a weak one indeed. Your countrymen cannot be trusted to embrace it if it is compared to others? If it is examined? Full scrutiny would prove it to be empty, if not worse? We in our own countries have acknowledged that belief must be embraced individually. And for generations continued with the faith being replenished. The sinners have full access to some of the less hurtful approaches. Of course, some things are still disallowed, such as murder. Adultery and many sins have their own punishments. Laws regulate what some are. But the thoughts of anger and rebellion are allowed to be voiced, if the owners of said thoughts are willing to face the opinions and reactions of others. We may have social ridicule, even ostracism, but we do not routinely murder those who reject our values-even if we believe it to be for the social good.
How do we face the disabling that such sin brings to our society? Glad you asked. You see, instead of enforcing sharia type control to regulate questions, we occasionally have revivals. Times when the degree of sin becomes so glaringly obvious, so weak to help lead our lives, so putrid the stench of decay, that our ears that have shut out the hope of the gospel finally open, even seek out those who would lead us in the way. And enough folks individually choose to open their hearts to healing. When their sins are repented of-turned from, the burden lifted from their shoulders, and the healing power of God falls upon their hearts, why more than their lives are changed. Entire communities, nations have their paths changed, their futures commuted. And in our cases, upon revival the country is reformed without bloodshed rather than with it. Such is the history of the United States and England. Not that we've never had bloodshed, but the culture has been improved peacefully many times.
In France, Russia, and most communist countries, change has been brought by revolution. The French Revolution, as well as the Nazi era for Germany, was with the rejection of Christian imput. Revival in Islamic lands has gone hand in hand with violence, repression, and horror thrust upon all who reject it. Certainly we have had times when religious fervor brought destruction, but of course I would have to distance some of that, most brought from political motivation and the greed of men, who merely used faith as the pretext for gain.
When true religion-and I dislike using that term-is revealed, it should be a beautiful savor drawing others to it. When people see others loving their enemies, humbling themselves, seeking the Lord, rejoicing in Him, when they can enter a sanctuary and sense His holiness, His presence filling the room, why then there is power. The majesty draws out hunger for knowing Him. Others do not have to be forced into it. So rather than challenge you to open your society to forces that would reveal its emptiness, crumbling the walls that keep you imprisoned, I challenge us.
Dare we repent of our self-centeredness, our lack of concern for His honor? Our unholiness fails to capture the gaze of a starving nation. We refuse to feed those gaunt from our lethargy. Dare we be the light on a hill that Jesus told us to be? Can we open ourselves to be reseasoned, or will we remain salt that has lost its flavor? Dare we face up to a society that has intimidated us not to mention Jesus? Should we keep our faith to ourselves so as not to embarrass or inconvenience another who choses to destroy his own and other lives? Or will we offer them the truth. We know we cannot force another to open their hearts to Jesus, to ask Him to forgive their sins. Well and good. But will we even tell them what is available, what they are missing so that they truly have a choice?
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