Outlive Your Life Part 4

* reports of 1.75 billion people who live on less than $1.25 a day?1 What do we see? "When He saw the mult.i.tudes, He was moved with compa.s.sion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd" (Matt. 9:36).

This word compa.s.sion is one of the oddest in Scripture. The New Testament Greek lexicon says this word means "to be moved as to one's bowels . . . (for the bowels were thought to be the seat of love and pity)."2 It shares a root system with splanchnology, the study of the visceral parts. Compa.s.sion, then, is a movement deep within-a kick in the gut.

Perhaps that is why we turn away. Who can bear such an emotion? Especially when we can do nothing about it. Why look suffering in the face if we can't make a difference?

Yet what if we could? What if our attention could reduce someone's pain? This is the promise of the encounter.

Then Peter said, "Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. So he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered the temple with them-walking, leaping, and praising G.o.d. (Acts 3:68) What if Peter had said, "Since I don't have any silver or gold, I'll keep my mouth shut"? But he didn't. He placed his mustard-seed- sized deed (a look and a touch) in the soil of G.o.d's love. And look what happened.

The thick, meaty hand of the fisherman reached for the frail, thin one of the beggar. Think Sistine Chapel and the high hand of G.o.d. One from above, the other from below. A holy helping hand. Peter lifted the man toward himself. The cripple swayed like a newborn calf finding its balance. It appeared as if the man would fall, but he didn't. He stood. And as he stood, he began to shout, and pa.s.sersby began to stop. They stopped and watched the cripple skip.

Don't you think he did? Not at first, mind you. But after a careful step, then another few, don't you think he skipped a jig? Parading and waving the mat on which he had lived?

The crowd thickened around the trio. The apostles laughed as the beggar danced. Other beggars pressed toward the scene in their ragged coverings and tattered robes and cried out for their portion of a miracle.

"I want my healing! Touch me! Touch me!"

So Peter complied. He escorted them to the clinic of the Great Physician and invited them to take a seat. "His name, . . . faith in His name, has made this man strong . . . Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord" (vv. 16, 19).

Blotted out is a translation of a Greek term that means "to obliterate" or "erase completely." Faith in Christ, Peter explained, leads to a clean slate with G.o.d. What Jesus did for the legs of this cripple, he does for our souls. Brand-new!

An honest look led to a helping hand that led to a conversation about eternity. Works done in G.o.d's name long outlive our earthly lives.

Let's be the people who stop at the gate. Let's look at the hurting until we hurt with them. No hurrying past, turning away, or shifting of eyes. No pretending or glossing over. Let's look at the face until we see the person.

A couple in our congregation lives with the heartbreaking reality that their son is homeless. He ran away when he was seventeen, and with the exception of a few calls from prison and one visit, his parents have had no contact with him for twenty years. His mom allowed me to interview her at a leadership gathering. As we prepared for the discussion, I asked her why she was willing to disclose her story.

"I want to change the way people see the homeless. I want them to stop seeing problems and begin seeing mothers' sons."

In certain Zulu areas of South Africa, people greet each other with a phrase that means "I see you."3 Change begins with a genuine look.

And continues with a helping hand. I'm writing this chapter by a dim light in an Ethiopian hotel only a few miles and hours removed from a modern-day version of this story.

Bzuneh Tulema lives in a two-room, dirt-floored, cinder-block house at the end of a dirt road in the dry hills of Adama. Maybe three hundred square feet. He's painted the walls a pastel blue and hung two pictures of Jesus, one of which bears the caption "Jesus the Goos [sic] Shepherd." During our visit the air is hot, the smell of cow manure is pungent, and I don't dare inhale too deeply for fear I'll swallow a fly.

Across from me, Bzuneh beams. He wears a Nike cap with a crooked bill, a red jacket (in spite of furnace-level heat), and a gap-toothed smile. No king was ever prouder of a castle than he is of his four walls. As the thirty-five-year-old relates his story, I understand.

Just two years ago he was the town drunk. He drank away his first marriage and came within a prayer of doing the same with the second. He and his wife were so consumed with alcohol that they farmed out their kids to neighbors and resigned themselves to a drunken demise.

But then someone saw them. Like Peter and John saw the beggar, members of an area church took a good look at their situation. They began bringing the couple food and clothing. They invited them to attend worship services. Bzuneh was not interested. However, his wife, Bililie, was. She began to sober up and consider the story of Christ. The promise of a new life. The offer of a second chance. She believed.

Bzuneh was not so quick. He kept drinking until one night a year later he fell so hard he knocked a dent in his face that remains to this day. Friends found him in a gully and took him to the same church and shared the same Jesus with him. He hasn't touched a drop since.

The problem of poverty continued. The couple owned nothing more than their clothing and mud hut. Enter Meskerem Trango, a World Vision worker. He continued the looking-and-touching ministry. How could he help Bzuneh, a recovering alcoholic, get back on his feet? Jobs in the area were scarce. Besides, who would want to hire the village sot? A gift of cash was not the solution; the couple might drink it away.

Meskerem sat with Bzuneh and explored the options. He finally hit upon a solution. Cow manure. He arranged a loan through the World Vision microfinance department. Bzuneh acquired a cow, built a shed, and began trapping the cow droppings and turning them into methane and fertilizer. Bililie cooked with the gas, and he sold the fertilizer. Within a year Bzuneh had repaid the loan, bought four more cows, built his house, and reclaimed his kids.

"Now I have ten livestock, thirty goats, a TV set, a tape recorder, and a mobile phone. Even my wife has a mobile phone." He smiled. "And I dream of selling grain."

It all began with an honest look and a helping hand. Could this be G.o.d's strategy for human hurt? First, kind eyes meet desperate ones. Next, strong hands help weak ones. Then, the miracle of G.o.d. We do our small part, he does the big part, and life at the Beautiful Gate begins to be just that.

When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compa.s.sion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

(Mark 6:34 NIV) Gracious Lord, in the Bible you are called "the One who sees me," and I know that your eyes are always upon me to guide and protect and bless and correct. You have given me eyes too. Grant me the power to use them to truly see. Help me see those you put in my path-really see them, with all their hurts, their desires, their longings, their needs, their joys, and their challenges. As you open my eyes, prompt me to open wide my arms to offer whatever help and encouragement I have to give. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.

CHAPTER 8.

Persecution:

Prepare for It; Resist It

The priests, the captain of the temple,

and the Sadducees came upon them.

-ACTS 4:1

On April 18, 2007, three Christians in Turkey were killed for their beliefs. Necati Aydin was one of them. He was a thirty-five-year-old pastor in the city of Malatya.

He nearly didn't go to his office that morning. He'd been traveling for ten days and his wife, Semse, wanted him to stay home and rest. She fed breakfast to their two children, Elisha and Esther, and took them to school. Upon returning, she walked softly so as not to awaken her husband. Even so, he stirred, squinted, opened his arms, and admitted his weariness. "I don't want to get up today."

But he did. There was much work to do. Only 0.2 percent of the mainly Muslim nation follows Jesus. Ironic. The land once knew the sandal prints of the apostle Paul and provided a stage for the first churches. But today? Turkish Christ worshippers number less than 153,000 in a nation of 76 million.1 People such as Necati live to change that. He pulled his weary body out of bed and got ready for the day.

As Semse remembers and retells the events of that morning, she pauses between sentences. Her round cheeks flush with pink. Dark hair sweeps in a wave across her forehead. Until this point she's been able to contain the emotion. She described the attack, the cruelty, and the harshness of sudden widowhood without tears. But at this sentence, they press through. "My dear husband walked out the door at eleven. I was waiting for him to get on the elevator. There he smiled at me one last time, but I didn't know that was the last smile. That's what I'll always remember . . ."

She sighs and looks away as if seeing a face only she can see. Then back. "This is a painful thing for me because I miss his smile . . . because the sun doesn't rise when he doesn't smile . . ."

Semse looks down and permits a soft sob but only one. "It's a bitter cup, and we have to drink of it every day."

By the time Necati reached the office, his two colleagues had already received visitors: five young men who had expressed an interest in the Christian faith. But the inquisitors brought more than questions. They brought guns, bread knives, ropes, and towels.

The attackers brandished their weapons and told Necati to pray the Islamic prayer of conversion: "There is no G.o.d except Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet."

When Necati refused, the torture began. For an agonizing hour the a.s.sailants bound, interrogated, and cut the Christians. Finally, with the police pounding on the door, they sliced the throats of the victims. The last word heard from the office was the cry of an unswerving Christian: "Messiah! Messiah!"2 Such stories have a way of silencing us. This morning's traffic jam is no longer worth the mention. While I might see myself-for a microsecond-as a man of faith, I ponder the martyrs of Malatya and wonder, Would I make the sacrifice? Would I cry out, "Messiah! Messiah!"? Would I give up my life? Why, some days I don't want to give up my parking spot.

The Turkish pastors could have lived. With their simple confession of Allah, knives would have been lowered and lives spared. Semse would have her husband, and Elisha and Esther would have their father. Necati could have gone home to his family. He chose, instead, to speak up for Christ.

What would you have done?

The question is more than academic. Persecution comes. Three-fourths of Christians live in the third world, often in anti-Christian environments. More Chinese take part in Sunday worship than the entirety of western Europeans. Lebanon is 39 percent Christian; Sudan, 5 percent; Egypt, about 10 percent.3 Many of these saints worship at their own risk. You may be one of them. You may be the only Christian in your Iraqi university. You may be an Arab woman who offers prayers in silence or a Messianic Jew who lives in the heart of Jerusalem.

Or perhaps you indwell a society of religious freedom but a community of spiritual oppression. You may not face blades and terrorists but critics and accusers. Family members mock your beliefs. University professors belittle your convictions. Cla.s.smates snicker at your choices. Colleagues pressure you to compromise your integrity. Coworkers make it their mission to snag you in a weak moment. Knife to your neck? No. But pressure to abandon your convictions?

I'm thinking of Maria Dutton, my Portuguese teacher when I was a missionary in Brazil. She grew up in an aristocratic and influential family. When she became a Christian, her father disowned her. He didn't attend her wedding or see her at holidays. For several years he had nothing to do with her or her children.

Heidi is the only believer on the high school cheerleading squad. When the others go wild after games, she goes home. When they party on road trips, she goes to the hotel. She is the pinata for their ridicule.

Persecution happens. Peter and John can tell you. They healed the cripple one minute and faced hara.s.sment the next. "Now as they [Peter and John] spoke to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them, being greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead" (Acts 4:12).

Thus far the early church had enjoyed smooth sailing. The Pentecost miracle harvested three thousand followers. The church gave birth to acts of kindness, compa.s.sion, and fellowship. Their good deeds authenticated their good news. The number of followers grew. The first three chapters of Acts are happy days. But then comes Acts 4. The church is barely out of the maternity ward, and in walk the town bullies: "the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them" (v. 1).

A brawny soldier presses through the crowd. He wears heavy ringlets of shoulder-length hair. His naked chest bulges, and his ma.s.sive legs seem to be poured iron. A medallion of authority hangs on his chest, and he carries a whip in his hand. He can, by law, arrest anyone who transgresses the temple courts. He has come to enforce the law.

The priests follow him: Caiaphas and his father-in-law, Annas. They stand on either side of the temple captain and cross their arms and glare this implicit warning: "Don't forget what we did to your Messiah. Didn't the three spikes on the Roman cross make it clear?"

Annas, the high priest, arches an eyebrow in the direction of Peter. He has not forgotten what this apostle did to his servant a few weeks ago in the Garden of Gethsemane. When the servant and the soldiers came to arrest Jesus, Peter drew his sword and "struck the high priest's servant, and cut off his right ear" (John 18:10). Jesus healed the ear, but the high priest has not forgotten the incident. I'm envisioning Annas tugging his ear and menacing, "I have a score to settle with you, Peter."

Peter, meanwhile, may be wrestling with a few Thursday night memories of his own. Not just about his slashing sword, but also his dashing feet. He and the other followers scooted out of the garden like scalded puppies, leaving Jesus to face his foes all alone. Later that night Peter mustered up enough loyalty to appear at Jesus' trial. But when people recognized him, Peter wilted again. He denied his Savior, not once, but three times.

So far the score is Persecution2, Peter0. Peter has failed every test of persecution. But he won't fail this one.

The trio stands firm. If their legs tremble, it's because the beggar just learned to stand and the apostles are choosing not to run.

Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, "Rulers of the people and elders of Israel: If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been made well, let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom G.o.d raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole."

(Acts 4:810)

No backdown in those words. I detect a touch of cynicism ("If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man . . .") and a large dose of declaration ("let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth . . ."). Just the name Jesus would have sufficed, but Peter unapologetically replies, "Jesus Christ of Nazareth." And then he states clearly, potently, and firmly, "There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (v. 12).

Annas and Caiaphas snarl their lips. The temple captain squeezes his whip. The eyes of the Sadducees narrow into tiny slits. The power brokers of Jerusalem glare at Peter and John.

But they don't budge an inch. What has happened to them? The last time they saw these soldiers, Peter and John left them in their rearview mirror. But today they go chin to chin with the Supreme Court of Jerusalem. What's gotten into them?

Luke gives us the answer in verse 13: "Now when [the accusers] saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus."

Peter and John had been with Jesus. The resurrected Jesus. In the Upper Room when he walked through the wall. Standing next to Thomas when the disciple touched the wounds. On the beach when Jesus cooked the fish. Sitting at Jesus' feet for forty days as he explained the ways of the kingdom.

They had lingered long and delightfully in the presence of the resurrected King. Awakening with him, walking with him. And because they had, silence was no longer an option. "We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard" (v. 20).

Could you use some high-octane boldness? If you want to outlive your life, you could. As long as you are stationary, no one will complain. Dogs don't bark at parked cars. But as soon as you accelerate-once you step out of drunkenness into sobriety, dishonesty into integrity, or lethargy into compa.s.sion-expect the yapping to begin. Expect to be criticized. Expect to be mocked. Expect to be persecuted.

So how can we prepare ourselves? Simple. Imitate the disciples. Linger long and often in the presence of Christ. Meditate on his grace. Ponder his love. Memorize his words. Gaze into his face. Talk to him. Courage comes as we live with Jesus.

Peter said it this way. "Don't give the opposition a second thought. Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master. Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you're living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy" (1 Peter 3:1415 MSG).

As we meditate on Christ's life, we find strength for our own. The example of Xu Yonghai comes to mind. A Christian in Communist China, he worked to see the legalization of house churches. The government responded by locking him in a Beijing prison for twenty-four months. His cell was eight-by-eight feet. There was no bathroom, only a pipe in a corner from which water flowed onto the concrete.

"My cell was the last stop for prisoners sentenced to die," he said. "At times there were as many as three other prisoners in the tiny, damp room, awaiting their date with the executioner."

Yonghai survived through prayer, meditation, and writing. On the walls of his cell, he wrote the major points for a book about G.o.d, using a bar of soap. Once he finished, he committed the thoughts to memory. Upon his release he turned his prison thoughts into a fifty-thousand-word book ent.i.tled G.o.d the Creator. Like Peter and John, Yonghai tarried in the presence of Jesus and found strength. Courage comes as we ponder the accomplishments of Christ.4 Would you be bold tomorrow? Then be with Jesus today. Be in his Word. Be with his people. Be in his presence. And when persecution comes (and it will), be strong. Who knows? People may realize that you, like the disciples, have been with Christ.

You know how much persecution and suffering I have endured. You know all about how I was persecuted in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra-but the Lord rescued me from all of it. Yes, and everyone who wants to live a G.o.dly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

(2 Tim. 3:1112 NLT) Father, you warn us that persecution is coming. Not to alarm us but to prepare us for what's ahead-that we might endure and persevere. That these hard experiences would glorify you and benefit us. For that to happen, Lord, I need a reorientation of perspective and a change of focus. Help me see the world through your eyes by focusing on your Son, remembering what he accomplished on the cross despite the persecution heaped on him. Whatever persecution I might suffer, Lord, let it bring you honor-and use it to help other followers of Jesus who will face their own persecution. In Christ's name I pray, amen.

CHAPTER 9.

Do Good, Quietly