young nation

Turks are a young nation again.
Almost thirty percent of the population is under fourteen years old.
It’s obvious that this country has an identity crises.
Who have they been; who are they today; who are they
supposed to be?
An attempt to be an exemplary Muslim country with all the benefits
of a free western democracy is destined to fail.
You cannot have it all. In order to choose you have to give up
something.
The father of all Turks, Kemal Ataturk wasn’t interested in
establishing an Islamic Turkey.
Neither are the couple of millions of people who have lately been
marching in the streets of Istanbul for a secular Turkey.
It’s difficult to be a good Muslim with Ataturk’s portrait on the wall.
Many Turks don’t see any contradiction with it.
Is it hypocrisy, or is it being all things to all men?
The wife of the murdered German missionary said in an interview on TV,
that she has forgiven the murderers. She believes that her husband’s murder
is a new beginning for Turkey.
Forgiveness is such an unknown concept that it confuses.
Some Turks are sure that she just wasn’t happily married to her husband.
How could she otherwise say that?
Yes, we are all learning.
A friend of mine told that eight years ago he came to sit in a park.
He saw a little book called “Mujda”(Gospel) on the bench.
He took is furtively home and couldn’t stop reading it.
He was shocked to learn about the goodness of Jesus.
Maybe Christians are not so bad people after all?
Then he heard about a foreigner who had prayer meetings in his home.
He was invited to come and pray with them.
He was so touched when he heard these supposedly enemies to pray
for his own country. He fell in love with the God of the Mujda.
This nation is like little Samuel, praying in the temple, but not
understanding that God is speaking with him.
May we encourage them the same way as Eli did telling Samuel
to say to the Lord, “Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.”
I Samuel 3

Tuesday night there will be nothing in the church. Come to the opening of the Uchisar Art Exhibition in the French Culture Center at 7p.m.in Taksim

p.Tahir encouraged us on his way back from Bulgaria to Azerbaijan. Pray for him and Inna as they seek the Lord for his leading for the future.

evening in Ortakoy

higher stardard

The disciples wanted to be practical and help Jesus out
when things seemingly got our of control.
They told Jesus in Mt.14:15 to send the people to the near by villages
to find bread for themselves. Jesus responded saying:
“You give them to eat”.
As so many times before, Jesus was introducing them a new standard
of thinking, faith.
In Mt.18:21 Peter thought that he was doing pretty well in his changed
attitude as he recommended his view on forgiveness to Jesus. I think
he really stretched far by saying that he was willing to forgive seven
times, if so needed.
Jesus shocked them all by revealing the standard of grace :”Not seven,
but seventy times seven.”
Grace reaches further.
It’s easy to depart from this standard of grace.
Right after a failure, ours or others’,
we easily fall into dead works and other punishing operations
thinking to impress God by our sincerity. It’s easy to stop thinking in grace.
The Corinthians were convicted that one of the brothers had gone too
far in his immoral behavior, I Cor.1:5
They separated the brother and stopped fellowshipping with him.
It looks like this brother really repented and was looking for a way to
be restored. The Corinthians had changed their standard, from grace
to legalism.In his second letter Paul has to plead with them again,
now to forgive this brother and receive him back. II Cor.2:6-7
It’s easy to see faults and punish those who are responsible for it.
It’s an invitation to live in a higher standard when we a called to
forgive those who, according to our judgment, have not deserved our
forgiveness.
Therefore grace always brings a greater joy to our life than judgment.

picture from Iran by Joseph Marion

clarity in the time of confusion

General confusion is often used to accomplish evil.
When everybody’s attention is drawn to the fly, even an
elephant can be smuggled out from a zoo park.
If you don’t know what is happening, you loose your
ability to guard yourself.
“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;
Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.”
Isaiah 5:20
Jesus said that disinformation would become so powerful
in the world that people who kill believers will think that
“they offer God service”. Jh.16:2
The victims are blamed to be the true assaulters .
This is the kind of darkness that cannot be removed
by logical discussion. It cannot be corrected by the United
Nations nor the by the International Court of Justice in
The Hague. It seemingly has no beginning and no end.
It has no handle in it. It is supernatural.
Fear not.
Proverbs 4:18 promises that even though the way
gets more narrow, the path of the righteous grows brighter
and brighter.
This brightness, clarity, is a great gift in today’s
world, where overwhelming evil confuses us and so
often goes beyond our comprehension.