A NEW CREATION

Back home in the USA, the seating of a new president is creating quite a stir.  But here in Southeast Asia where i’ve now been for the better part of a week, i’m reminded of what’s truly important.

i’m in Cambodia, working mostly with the locals here on an outreach team which is bringing Jesus's message of love and mercy to a people who are hungry to receive it.  Meeting Jesus is life changing for many Khmer, because in the 1970’s millions of them were slaughtered in a ruthless genocide that attempted to quash anything and everything that was opposed to the totalitarian authority of the state.  Many of the elders we are now meeting - almost always in their tin-roofed, open-walled homes - are personal survivors of the genocide, as are several members of our team.  So the struggle against tyranny is very personal to them.  But there is also a profound humility and eagerness to embrace Jesus's ways, because the notion of mercy is so foreign to Khmer culture that there isn't even a word for forgiveness in the language.
 
While that definitely presents some challenges, it also offers a wonderful opportunity, because mere words will never suffice.  The only way to communicate mercy is to be mercy.  And when we manage to do that, human souls open like lotus blossoms, because the craving for mercy - for the kind of mercy Jesus brought, which wasn't primarily with words but with compassion and power - is so core that it transcends culture and satisfies the deepest longings of our hearts.
 
How transforming is Christ's mercy!  A couple of days ago i rode to the villages on the back of a moto driven by a guy who as a young man was an officer in the Khmer Rouge, and who continued to oppose Christ's mercy for decades after that bloody reign ended.  More recently - for ten years after his wife met Jesus - he repeatedly burned every Bible she brought home.  But she asked her Lord to show her husband mercy, and the entire local church joined her in those pleas, and Jesus answered.  He underwent a radical change in his heart, and Jesus did in him something akin to how He once transformed Saul into Paul.  The terrorist became an evangelist, and now that same man spends every day returning to his village and neighboring places, humbly serving as the hands and feet of Christ!  He now has a gentle demeanor and a tender heart.  And last year, when he and his wife rededicated their marriage to Jesus, his wife wept.  "I have a new husband!" she exclaimed to everyone within earshot, tears streaming down her face.
 
Only Jesus does things like that!  Mere politics can never reach that deep into human souls.  Political movements come and go - they toss and turn like waves in the sea - but the love of God revealed in the face of Christ endures forever!
 
Jesus refuses to be enthroned in Washington or any other worldly place, despite the best-laid plans of well-meaning reformers.  The only throne Jesus has ever coveted, and the only throne worthy of Him, is your heart, my heart, and the ones who are working against us.
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