15 Secrets to a Wonderful Life by Michael Youssef

Author:Michael Youssef [YOUSSEF, MICHAEL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL012000
ISBN: 9780446511650
Publisher: FaithWords
Published: 2008-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

“What If . . . ?”

Martin Niemöller was a German pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church during World War II. As a cofounder of the anti-Nazi Confessing Church, Niemöller courageously opposed the Nazis until his arrest by the Gestapo in 1937. He was imprisoned in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps for eight years and narrowly escaped execution.

Shortly before his death in 1984 at age 92, Niemöller told a few friends of a strange recurring dream. In this dream, Niemöller witnessed the great day of God’s judgment of humanity, when everyone came before the Lord Jesus to be judged. To his surprise, Niemöller saw Adolf Hitler standing before Jesus. The Lord had one arm compassionately around Hitler and He said, “Why, Adolf, why? What drove you to kill so many? Why were you so cruel?”

And Hitler wept and hung his head, sobbing, “I didn’t know about You! No one ever told me how much You love me!”

At this point, Niemöller would awaken in a cold sweat, consumed with guilt. Why did he feel guilty? Because, in the 1930s, before the war began, Niemöller had a number of face-to-face meetings with Adolf Hitler. As a leader of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Niemöller spoke personally with Hitler, not just once but many times. In all of those meetings, Martin Niemöller never once spoke as an ambassador of Jesus Christ, bringing a message of reconciliation from the Father. Never once had he said, “God loves you, Herr Hitler. He loves you so much He sent His Son to die for you. The war between you and God is over. All will be forgiven if you simply accept this gift. You can have peace with God through His Son.”

Martin Niemöller couldn’t help wondering how history might have turned out differently—had he come to Hitler, not as a leader of the Lutheran Church, but as an ambassador of the King of Glory. How might the world have changed—had Niemöller mastered the art of peacemaking in his conversations with the Nazi dictator? He would never know—and he was haunted by that sense of “What if . . . ?”

There are people all around you who have never heard the good news that the war is over, that peace with God is at hand. They have never heard that all will be forgiven if they simply accept the gift of salvation Jesus offers them, paid in full. They are waiting for a message of hope from a peacemaker, an ambassador of the King of Glory.

You are that ambassador. Don’t delay. Don’t neglect the honor God has given you. Find a hurt and heal it. Find a need and meet it. Find someone who is lost and point the way to peace.

We are Christ’s ambassadors, and we implore everyone around us on His behalf: “Be reconciled to God.” That is the cure for the sin plague. That is the pathway to positive living.

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