Monthly Newsletter

Representing God:

My oldest brother Michael was just recently diagnosed with terminal cancer. He was brought up in the same Christian Orthodox home as me up to age 10 when the Government took him away to a special school in a communist and atheist country. He was atheist all his life and never believed in God. His life was difficult and tough and he hardly came home for visits.

I flew back home to visit him on his death bed with the hope that I would reach his heart and help him to understand that there is a loving God who cares for him and was always there beside him throughout his life. To my sadness and disappointment, Michael’s main reason for why he does not believe in God is because the God he has seen in Christians all of his life was not a God he wants to know. When I asked him what he meant he said that all of his experiences with Christians were worse than with any atheists. This was a shock to me and I could not sleep over his statement. The next morning I was thinking how do I vindicate Christianity. I knew well that he did encounter lots of hypocrisy by those who were supposed to be guardians of the Truth and bring light of the grace of our Lord Jesus. 

I am in that same group he identified as unloving people. I am claiming to be a Christian! I know for a fact that he had very bad experiences with God's believing people, that was always known to me and I realized how important those experiences are in the life of people who are weak in faith. They  (the unbelievers) are seeing God through the deeds and words of Christians, they can tell whether we are living with God, or living with Satan. They judge God through the life of Christians who claim to follow Him. 

If we call ourselves Christians after the name of Christ and we represent God with a character that is not of Him, we are misrepresenting God's character. How sad that many of us fail in representing God, our Saviour, properly. Michael also said to me that God should have stepped in when he needed him in hard times of life, but God was never there for him and Michael felt alone in his trials and battles of life. I tried to convince him that God was always there for him but he rejected it. He is very bitter as he never experienced the true love he was looking for.

I felt very discouraged and pricked in my own conscience. Are there more Michael's out there who've had the same bitter experience with Christians? As I was analyzing my life, I realized that the God we show to others around us must be a God of love and hope. God of grace, compassion, and mercy. It is the love that wins the heart, not rules, regulations, facts, and even truth. Truth is alive only through God's Spirit. We can know the Bible inside out but if we do not know love towards our fellow man then all the knowledge we have is good for nothing. As far as Michael is concerned, I think of the thief on the cross, how in the last minute of his life he realized that innocent God died for His sins. I pray for Michael every day and while he is alive I wish and hope that despite the evil, the good will prevail and Michael will find that God of love and mercy even in the last days of his life, just as the thief on the cross did.

There are apparently about 3 billion people who are currently out of reach of the gospel. They have never met the true God of love, although many have met Christians but did not find them attractive enough to care for their God. This is sad. The Bible says, and they shall know them by their love. (John 13:35 "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.")

Friends, are we known by our love? Can people see a difference in us from the world?  Let us not lose sight of the great picture of what the Gospel message is really all about. Let us realize that it will be the walk, not the talk of Christianity that will convert and convict the hearts of people! Think of those 3 billion people we need to reach. Do we have a sense of urgency to reach them?  How are we going to do this work?  What way will we reach them? We must make a plan what is the most effective way to reach others. Let us pray for a great awakening. Do we continue to gather more into our barns? There is a need to trade the garments of leisure, sports and riches for cloth of spiritual war, to deny ourselves of unnecessary luxury and recreation for the sake of the Gospel.  Without a Holy Spirit and without God’s guidance in our lives we can not do this task. The task is enormous, but we cannot fail again to reach those that need to hear about Jesus. Let us pray as never before to have this love of Jesus imparted to us.

We pray most earnestly that our channel can go worldwide with a message of Him who died for us on the cross because of His great love for us. The world needs to see the loving Son of God,  the world needs to see His followers as true Christians.