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There’s a big push in the US of A these days to “Change the world!”  After all, we ARE the “light of the world”, are we not?  It should be OBVIOUS to everyone that we have the answers to ALL life’s problems.  That’s why we have rampant drug use across our land, because we are the light.  That’s why we kill thousands upon thousands of helpless newly conceived babies every year, because we are the light.  That’s why men and women are turning from what is natural to unnatural relationships with each other, because we are the light.  That’s why nearly half of all marriages in our land end in divorce, because we are the light.

Sarcasm?  Yes.  And hopefully it will help folks who read my  rantings to think a bit.  Does the world need to change?  Obviously it does.  But is the use of “military might” the way to achieve what is right?  Not really.  Yeah, I know, “They hit us first!”  That’s the rallying cry behind our current push to annihilate anyone who is different from us.  I share the indignation about the recent threat by the Afghan government to martyr a man who had become a Christian.  That’s not right.  But millions of people have given their lives over the centuries and millennia in the name of Jesus the Christ.  They have gone to their deaths bravely, never denying He Who gave His Life for them.  This is sad, to say the least, and yet their deaths have often brought about the very changes that they longed for.

We need to be careful about how we seek change.  The story told in “Through Gates of Splendor” is familiar to many now.  Five missionary men went to meet with a tribe of indians they knew of as the Auca.  They spent weeks and months preparing the way.  They offered gifts by way of a simple air drop mechanism that allowed the Auca to respond in kind.  They did everything within their power to show their peaceful intentions – and then their lives were brutally ended by the people they wished to help.

The government of the US didn’t send in bombers.  They didn’t even launch an invasion of the jungle by special forces.  The national government did nothing either.  It was the families of the slain men who brought about true justice in this case.  They went in to the very people who had killed their loved ones – and showed them love, mercy and forgiveness.  And this display brought about positive change in the lives of those who had lived in darkness.

If we want to change the Muslim mind set, we will not do so by “bombing them into submission”.  To do so is to pay them in the same coin that they have paid us – and will only confirm in their hate filled minds that we are the enemy they believe us to be – the Great Satan who would destroy their world.  If we want true peace then we must send emissaries of peace to them.  We must encourage and help men of God to go and minister to them even and Jesus the Christ ministered while He was on earth.  Even as the Apostles went forth through the world preaching Jesus the Christ and showing people how to glorify Him in their lives.

But will we do so?  It saddens me to hear men who claim to be Christian calling for the annihilation of over a billion people – because they don’t agree with their outlook on the world.  Reagan is commonly given credit for “ending the cold war”, and yet the millions of people who taught others to look to God in the face of horrible repression deserve at LEAST as much credit – because they brought about a change in the hearts of their country men.

Do we want to bring about a change in the horribly repressive Muslim mind set?  Most of us do.  But we’ll never manage it by brute force.  The few people who would remain following widespread genocide would have even deeper hatred of those who attempted such a forced change – and the problem would crop up again in the future.  To bring about real change we should turn to Jesus the Christ and ask Him what we should do.  Those who work evil will bow before Him in the last day and will be judged and condemned by His Word.  Oh that we would seek to do good in His Name and be commended on that great and awful final day.

To do things His way is not easy.  Often it leads to a path of martyrdom.  But the blood of the martyrs often waters the seeds of change.  In the words of Nate Saint who “lost” his life on the banks of a river in Ecuador at the hands of the very people he wished to help, “He is no fool who gives up that which he can not keep to gain that which he can not lose.”

May God raise up hosts amongst us to bring about change – through His means rather than through human violence.  Remember, the wrath of man does not work the justice of God.