I am sitting at a simple plastic folding table, the kind you might see at the local small town after church pot-luck Sunday fellowship dinner, surrounded by forest, hills, and friends, in the mountain area of Zlatibor in Southwest Serbia. Rain is gently falling and clouds are kissing the hilltops around us. In short, it is a melancholy moment that almost allows one to forget the turmoil of the world that stews so angrily around us. The massacre in Norway...the idiocy of budget talks in Washington D.C....the obstinacy of politicians who are clueless about paying bills and cutting back on expenses because one does not have the money to keep spending...the daily dialogue as to whether Greece will default on loans and go bankrupt...Libya, Syria, Egypt, Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan...ad nausea and so it goes.
But here we are privileged to help train fellow Christ-followers from parts of former Yugoslavia in the ways of reaching future teachers, doctors, parliamentarians, moms, dads, lawyers, farmers, shop keepers, pastors, elders, wives, husbands, etc., with the life changing Gospel of our Saviour, Jesus. Not a Gospel that excludes someone because of their skin color, passport, language, religion, bank account, etc., but a Gospel that loves all people no matter who they are and where they live, and a Gospel that desires nothing less that all would come to know the author and finisher of that Gospel, Jesus, as their own Saviour and Lord.
While the people of Norway will mourn today and for many days following, European Union leaders, other European nations, politicians, sociologists, psychologists, educators, etc. will hold discussions, write very important (no doubt) papers, pass ridiculous laws on religion and toleration/diversity, and prattle on how someone in such a modern country as Norway and as a member of the European Union could have committed such a horrendous crime. "Where did our education system go wrong?" "Are we too tolerant of these intolerant religions that teach such silly absolutes as sin and hell and Jesus and God and only one way to God?" (Huh, I wonder what the Richard Dawkins' of today think about the Norwegian massacre?)
So let them prattle, let them pass their ridiculous laws, let them wonder how they can keep religion from corrupting European minds. We will keep teaching God's true word, God's true religion which is His love and available salvation to all people, everywhere, from the youngest to the oldest, the poorest to the richest, the smartest to the poor peasant farmer. True Christianity does not massacre, does not hate, does not look at skin color or political party membership; true Christianity shares the truth in love, and desires to show that truth and love through our imperfect yet committed to our God lives.
The training will continue and somewhere, somehow, today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, a heart here, a heart there, will hear the Truth and God will change that heart and yet one more soul will enter into God's kingdom.
But here we are privileged to help train fellow Christ-followers from parts of former Yugoslavia in the ways of reaching future teachers, doctors, parliamentarians, moms, dads, lawyers, farmers, shop keepers, pastors, elders, wives, husbands, etc., with the life changing Gospel of our Saviour, Jesus. Not a Gospel that excludes someone because of their skin color, passport, language, religion, bank account, etc., but a Gospel that loves all people no matter who they are and where they live, and a Gospel that desires nothing less that all would come to know the author and finisher of that Gospel, Jesus, as their own Saviour and Lord.
While the people of Norway will mourn today and for many days following, European Union leaders, other European nations, politicians, sociologists, psychologists, educators, etc. will hold discussions, write very important (no doubt) papers, pass ridiculous laws on religion and toleration/diversity, and prattle on how someone in such a modern country as Norway and as a member of the European Union could have committed such a horrendous crime. "Where did our education system go wrong?" "Are we too tolerant of these intolerant religions that teach such silly absolutes as sin and hell and Jesus and God and only one way to God?" (Huh, I wonder what the Richard Dawkins' of today think about the Norwegian massacre?)
So let them prattle, let them pass their ridiculous laws, let them wonder how they can keep religion from corrupting European minds. We will keep teaching God's true word, God's true religion which is His love and available salvation to all people, everywhere, from the youngest to the oldest, the poorest to the richest, the smartest to the poor peasant farmer. True Christianity does not massacre, does not hate, does not look at skin color or political party membership; true Christianity shares the truth in love, and desires to show that truth and love through our imperfect yet committed to our God lives.
The training will continue and somewhere, somehow, today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, a heart here, a heart there, will hear the Truth and God will change that heart and yet one more soul will enter into God's kingdom.
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