One of the hardest lessons that I’ve had to learn zeros in on the wisdom found in Luke 6:27-28 “Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you.  Pray for those who hurt you.”

When I was in the 7th and 8th grade, I was constantly picked on by a taller, bigger guy who we’ll call B.  Unfortunately I had B. in several classes, and lunch period, and recess period.  There was no getting away from him.  This literally went on for several years.  As you can imagine, this weighed heavy on my mind and heart.  Every night during my devotional time I would plead with God to make B. stop.  I even told my parents about it and asked them to pray the same thing.  But day after day my circumstances did not change.  I began to wonder “Does God hear me?  Does God love me?”.

Well of course God heard me and loved me.  It was because of His great love that he patiently and compassionately taught me a lesson.  One day at the lunch table, I just happened to be sitting near B.  He had already made a few negative comments to me in passing.  But then B. looked into his backpack and realized that he forgot his lunch.  “O man!  I forgot my lunch” he said to many of his friends sitting around him.  Now I wasn’t sitting that close to him but I did hear him.  And as soon as I did, a strong urge and internal voice began to blair in my head.  It said essentially, “Give him half of your lunch.”

You have to realize that B. and I had two years of bad history between us.  I wasn’t even sitting that close to him.  But that voice in my head was loud and would not go away.  Reluctantly, I stood up, walked over to B. and gave him half of my lunch.  I can still replay the entire scene in my head  in slow motion.  B. was speechless as well as both of our sets of friends.

Did God change my circumstances after my act of obedience?  Actually he did.  From that day on B. stopped picking on me.  After two years of prayer and grief, a simple act of kindness brought resolution.  However, God didn’t stop there.  Several years later B. had an auto accident and was in a comma.  That same loud voice told me I needed to go visit him and his family in the hospital.  Now B. did not know that I was in the room, but his mother did.  She said I was the only student from school that had come to visit him.  I left a card and a balloon.  In the card I mentioned that I was praying for him.  B. eventually recovered but I never saw him at school again.

Several years later I saw B. again.  He was working at a local amusement park.  He actually recognized me first and ran up to me.  He told me that he had been keeping up with me through others and new that I was involved in Christian ministry.  He told me that he had become a Christian and that he appreciated me demonstrating Jesus to him.

Alright, so my story has a happy ending.  Does mean that every person who hates you or curses you will suddenly have a change of heart if you show them kindness? Not necessarily.  But have you tried?  Have you been obedient to God’s word and applied Luke 6:27-28 to your situation?

Today if you ask someone on the street in America who their enemy was many would say something about the terrorists or Muslim extremists.  How many people in Islamic societies have experienced the love of Jesus lived out among them?  Have you thought about befriending a local Muslim family?  Not for the purpose of converting them, but just to show them that God loves them?

God give us the strength to obey, even when it is hard, so that you can show up and receive the glory!

What is His plan?  What is His end goal for the world? We can look at the end of the Bible in Rev. 7:9 where it says, “And there was a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb.  They were clothed in white and held palm branches in their hands.  And they were shouting with a mighty shout, “Salvation comes from our God on the throne and from the Lamb!”  This is how it all ends.  This is where history is heading. He will build His kingdom and He will receive all of the Glory.  And for some strange reason He wants us to join Him in making it happen.  I can’t explain that part.

But I do know that when God calls us to His vision, He will invite us to become part of something bigger than ourselves, so much so that if He does not supernaturally intervene, we will not make it.  This is “risk”, when God many times asks us to join Him in meeting a need that is greater than the resources or to say yes to an opportunity that is greater than our ability.

It reminds me of the story in John 6 where Jesus feeds five thousand people using a poor boys lunch with five barley loaves and two fishes.  When asked for his lunch, the little boy could have said “No”, or “why don’t you get your own lunch” or “my lunch wouldn’t make a dent in hunger of this crowd.”  But instead he “risked” his lunch willingly, eager to see what would happen.  The little boy didn’t have much, but He had the materials of a miracle.  You and I don’t have much but we have the materials of a miracle.

God, I give you my lunch.  Do with it what you will.

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. ¹⁰ They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” ¹¹ Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed.  Rev 6:9-11

By now most of you have heard about Gayle Williams’ martyrdom in Kabul this week.  Gayle, 34 years old, worked with SERVE International and had lived in Afghanistan for 2 ½ years.  While she was walking to work on Monday morning two men drove up on a motorcycle, got off, shot her, and then sped away.  The Taliban has claimed responsibility and said they killed her for spreading Christianity.  Gayle is one of those souls under the altar in Rev 6. 

In David Garrison’s book, Church Planting Movements, he reports that the suffering of missionaries is one of the 10 common characteristics prior to the start of Church Planting Movements.  We don’t know how God will use Gayle’s death, but we are confident in His faithfulness and His goodness that her martyrdom will be to do great things to lift His name up in Afghanistan.  While we don’t know how God will use this tragic death, we have seen over and over in history how a missionary’s death opened doors to the gospel that were sealed shut prior to that.  A look at the history of the church in Indonesia is filled with several martyrs that resulted in whole tribes turning to Christ.  We can pray for a similar dramatic change in Kabul as a result of Gayle’s death.

While we know Gayle is present with the Lord and free from the problems and distractions of this world, it is far more difficult on those left behind. 

Lord we know that you are at work in Afghanistan.  Please bring peace to those left behind so that they may continue your work.