“But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” Matthew 5:44
Here’s a video of a Christian child, 10 year old Myriam, forgiving ISIS even though her family has lost everything because of the terrorist group. She said:
“I will only ask God to forgive them.
Now comes the news that the video and several others like it have gone viral in the Middle East demonstrating the teaching of Jesus to ‘love your enemies’ in a culture where ‘eye for an eye’ is the normal response. From Christianity Today:
To date, more than 1 million people have seen her witness online. [Full video at the bottom]
SAT-7’s 5 channels reach an audience of 15 million in North Africa and the Middle East, though it’s impossible to measure how many people watched Myriam. However, numbers can be tracked through the social media campaign, which has reached 25 times its normal audience, with subtitles of the video provided in English, Spanish, Turkish, and Chinese. Word spread not only through SAT-7 affiliates, but also in the local secular press.
Pan-Arabic al-Arabia praised Myriam for confronting ISIS with love. “Everyone who listens to her is astounded,” echoed the Egyptian Youm 7. Leading Lebanese daily al-Nahar called for the clip to be shown in the nation’s schools as a lesson in humanity.
Response: What a lesson in faith! File this story in the “for such is the Kingdom of God” (Luke 18:16) category. They are far better Christians than I.
Most of us in America wonder what kind of ‘Christians’ these displaced Iraqis really are. Since they mostly attend Catholic and Orthodox affiliated churches many of us have an erroneous impression that they might only be so-called ‘cultural Christians.’ Maybe that is why so few of us are upset or up in arms when we read the reports of their persecution and death. But hundreds of thousands of these Near Eastern Christians have lost everything for their faith and thousands have paid the ultimate price as martyrs. They actually have a greater right to bear the name of Christ than many of us living in safe and comfortable communities in the West.
The video above should transform our thinking about these fellow believers. I know of several missionaries and relief personnel loosely connected with my home church which are working among these refugees in Iraq. The word and reports we receive from them is that there is real revival going on among these folks with abundant healing and miracles in their midst. Please keep praying for these bothers and sisters and those who are ministering in their midst.