The Middle East Challenge
The Middle East is the birthplace of the world's major religions, which impact well over 40% of the world's population. It is where the Garden of Eden once was, and where God renewed the world after the flood. It is also where history will find its final culmination. In the sovereignty of God, he placed the Middle East center stage in his grand design to bless the entire world through his people.
Right now it's hard to imagine that anything good can come from this place. Millions have been displaced and killed in Syria, thousands are starving in Yemen. We see just endless conflicts from one country to the next. The irony is that all of this is caused by Muslims fighting Muslims. The so called brotherhood of Islam turns out to be a complete sham.
Only Jesus has the answer, the prince of peace, who laid down his life to show us the way. The Middle East then was not too much unlike the way it is now. In fact, so was the whole world. But Jesus showed us another way - a way out of the mess we are in. While hanging from the cross, he said "Father forgive them . . . " These are the words the world needs to here. Only Christ can give us the power to forgive and let go. In fact it seems he alone has a monopoly on the matter. There is no other source or solution to our human problem of unforgiveness. God designed us this way. Without him, we lack the basic capacity to get along with one another. Even in the free-world, governed by englightement principles and ideology, without God's power found in Jesus, we too will turn on one another, and eventually collapse under the weight of our mutual hate.
What is God's plan then for us and the Middle East? It is simply this: to show how in the midst of our greatest darkness, his grace can redeem, restore and renew. That is exactly what we find happening in the Middle East. Thousands of Muslism are finding Jesus in the midst of the chaos and for the first time in a long time, a bold movement is beginning that is not afraid to tell the whole world. Much of this is happening on social media. New believers are posting pictures of their baptisms and telling everyone the know: I belong to Jesus. This has never happened before. But something is breaking. Something is changing. And in the end only God will get all the glory for it.