Last week at our VOM chapel, Brother Merv shared with us. Merv is one of the longest-tenured members of the worldwide VOM family. (You can watch a video interview with him here.) One of the stories he shared was from his time working side-by-side with Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand as Merv helped launch and lead our VOM sister office in Australia.

“ in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

Have you ever met someone who has fallen away from the Lord? Certainly, there are many reasons why this happens to people. But there is one re-occurring reason that I have been seeing recently: They accepted the wrong gospel.

“They have burned our possessions, but they cannot burn Jesus from our hearts.”

One writer has suggested that we use the buffeting and temptations we encounter in the world as a way for toning-up the muscles of our faith (see Andree Seu, “What is the Victory?” World, June 7, 2003, 43). Toning-up the muscles of our faith is the theme of Hebrews 12:1-12. The “struggle against sin” in verse 4 has been taken by many to mean a struggle against one’s personal sins; however, if you take verse 3 into account (the opposition from sinful men), then verse 4 points more toward the meaning of overcoming the sins of the world or the sinful actions of men that seek to harm us, which press upon us as heavy weights. We can allow these weights to cause us to “grow weary and lose heart” (v. 3); or, we can use them as a means to tone-up our faith.

Christ dramatically changed the life of “Hussein**,” a former Muslim in Iran. Once he had been a drug addict planning his own death, but now he was an on-fire believer in Christ who quit his job to pursue full-time ministry in the underground church. He was assigned to “shadow” a Christian couple in their ministry work as he learned and grew in his calling.

“I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:3-6).

“Wars and rumors of wars.” These words are a painful reality for many. Most of us not in hostile areas are so inundated with the devastation of war and terrorism on television that, after a while, we want to push it away, hoping that it will disappear. Unfortunately, it is our daily dose of reality, and it does not look like it is going to end. Because we care about people, we feel the pain of injured humanity as though we were experiencing it ourselves.

Throughout history, Christians have utilized persecution as an avenue for ministry. Persecution can place us in situations where we would not normally be or want to be. When we are put in prison or taken to court for our faith, we have a venue that is not normally ours to utilize. We are thrust behind enemy lines where we can minister. Erwin McManus writes in The Barbarian Way: If Christ has won our heart, he will lead us “to advance forward behind enemy lines to win the hearts of those who do not yet know Him or love Him” (Barbarian, 13-14).

Last month, I shared how I felt like a project when my Muslims friends try to convert me. But what if I turn the tables and ask myself: Should I, as a Christian, convert Muslims?