If I have said this once, I have said this a million times and I will continue to say it, "You never know whose life you are affecting for time and eternity for the Kingdom of God when you faithfully and obediently share the life-saving, life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ." Never is that more true than the story that Chuck Colson tells in Chapter 2 in Loving God.
Boris Nicholayevich Kornfeld is not a name that a lot of people in the Christian faith will know but that doesn't mean he didn't have a major impact on the Kingdom of God and it is a story of obedience and the tremendous power of the Gospel. You will be encouraged and challenaged after reading today's devotion.
Kornfeld was a medical doctor during Stalin's reign of terror in Russia in the 1950's. While it isn't know what crime he committed that sent him to the concentration camp in Ekibastuz, unbeknownst to this Jewish doctor, he was about to come face to face with the one true God.
Kornfeld had followed his parent's beliefs in Communism. Although Jewish in birth, Kornfeld was probably what was called "enlightened Jew" because he accepted the philosophy of rationalism and "cultivated a knowledge of the natural sciences."
Somehow Kornfeld found himself in a Russian gulag. A place known for its "brutality, the waste of lives, the trivialities called criminal charges made men like Kornfeld doubt the glories of the system of socialism...behind the wire prisoners had time to think." It was there that he became a Christian.
For a Russian Jew during that time period to become a Christian was rare because before the Russian Revolution, the Russian Orthodox Church's anti-Semitism made life unendurable for almost 200 years. Stalin demanded total loyalty to his government but Christians and Jewish people a like knew their loyalty belonged only to God.
So in the Russian prison, Kornfeld came in contact with a devout Christian who spoke of a Jewish Messiah "who had come to keep the promises the Lord had made to Israel. He pointed out that Jesus had spoken almost solely to Jewish people and proclaimed that He came to the Jews first. This man often recited aloud the Lord's Prayer, and Kornfeld heard in those simple words a strange ring of truth."
Colson goes on to tell the internal struggle that the Russian doctor had with his previous beliefs and this new message of hope and peace. Over time, his heart and his arguements were slowly being won over by the power of the gospel.
"He found himself almost unconsciously, repeating the words he had heard from his fellow prisoner. 'Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.' Having seen his own evil heart, he had to pray for cleansing. And he had to pray to a God who suffered, as he had: Jesus."
Suddenly Kornfeld was a new person. He stopped signing forms saying patients were healthy enough for solitary confinement because now he couldn't lie. While that was bad, Kornfeld did the unforgiveable; he turned in an orderly, who was stealing food from sick prisoners. In doing this, he knew his life was endanager but he had to be obedient to what he knew to do.
"Having accepted the possibility of death, Boris Kornfeld was now free to live. He signed no more papers or documents sending men to their deaths. He no longer turned his eyes from cruelty or shrugged his shoulders when he saw injustice. And soon he realized that the anger and hatred and violence in his own soul had vanished. He wondered whether there lived another man in Russia who knew such freedom."
Kornfeld desperately wanted to share his newfound faith of obedience and freedom with someone and he found it in a cancer patient. So he began to tell his story to the sickly patient. Told him of his conversion to Christ and "once the tale began to spill out, Kornfeld could not stop." Coming in and out of anesthesia, the patient missed the first part but knew he was listening to something very real and "knew he was listening to an incredible confession....he hung on the doctor's words until he feel alseep."
It was during the night that someone came up behind the doctor and hit him eight times with a plaster's mallet, killing him.
"The patient pondered the doctor's last, impassioned words. As a result, he, too, became a Christian. He survived that prison camp and went on to tell the world what he had learned there.
The patient's name was Alexander Solzhenitsyn."
For those who don't know that name, let's just say that he was one of the greatest Christian apologist along the lines of CS Lewis. Look him up.
You see, when we are faithfully sharing the gospel of Jesus we are taking part in changing the world. Look for ways to actively share your faith. Who knows, the person you lead to Christ or help lead to Christ will be the next Christian leader.
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