If You were Born Here Instead of There
Michael Oh:
If YOU were born into a fundamentalist Islamic family what would YOU want Christians in America to do? If YOU were born into a family of a Shinto priest, how would YOU want Christians in America to respond? Knowing what you know today, certainly you would want them to share with you about eternal life through the Savior of the world Jesus Christ. Certainly you would want them to bring the Gospel to their nation and teach them about salvation for their souls and about eternal life. Certainly you would want churches and Christians in other nations to sacrifice financially to send missionaries to teach you the Bible, God's Word to this world.

But again, by the grace of God, you WEREN'T born into those circumstances. You were born into your own. So you can ignore what COULD HAVE BEEN and just continue in the circumstances you have been given by God's grace. Or you can choose to recognize that you are who you are, that you are saved, that you are blessed, that you are undeservedly loved— only by the grace of God— and choose to do all that is in your power to help those in need. To invest the blessing of your education for those who have none. To invest the blessing of your finances to help those who have little or none. To invest your spiritually blessed life to help those around the world who are lost without Christ to hear the good news of Jesus Christ.

Takanori Oba is a young man who was born in Japan, the largest unreached nation of the world. He was born to a father who when he would get drunk took out his anger by beating his son and throwing golf balls at his head. In the evening when his father returned to their apartment Takanori would quickly turn out his light and pretend to be sleeping hoping to avoid a whipping by his father's belt. Perhaps you are thinking, "Thank God that I wasn't born into a life like his." Eventually Takanori and his mother escaped their father and home to start a new life. Years later the grace of God reached down to Takanori Oba and saved his soul. He later became the first graduate of Christ Bible Seminary in Nagoya, Japan where I serve as president. During the second year of his studies he was able to visit his abusive father, seeing him for the first time in over 15 years. When he saw his father, God gave Taka a logic-defying compassion for the man who had caused him such pain.

Why was Takanori born into his circumstances? Was it a curse? No, it was the grace of God. And today Takanori is seeking to share that same grace with the father who abused him. That's what Takanori would have wanted if he were born into his father's circumstances. That's the Golden Rule.

Read the whole thing.