This is our message. No matter what happens – in our personal lives, or in the world – may we boldly remain steadfast upon this foundational truth.
Tag: persecution
No Greater Freedom
“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
John 8:36
Daniel knew it in the lions’ den, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego knew it in the fire, David knew it in the wilderness, Paul knew it in chains, John knew it on the island of Patmos, Pastor Saeed Abedini knows it in prison, and countless others know it under communist rule, tyrannical regimes, intense persecution… No matter what circumstances we face directly around us or in the world, no one can chain our spirits once Christ has set us free.
And there is no greater freedom than that.
Happy freedom day, no matter where you are!
Love: Food, Drink…and Burning Coals?
“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord. On the contrary:
‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head. (Proverbs 25:21-22)’
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
Romans 12:9-21
The term “to heap burning coals on someone’s head,” is not, as it might seem at first glance, an act of vengeance. It’s actually an act of kindness. People needed to keep their home’s fire burning during the night to cook food in the morning. If it died out, they would go to a neighbor and ask for live coals to relight their fire. The neighbor would have to get out of bed and give some of their own fire’s coals. The coals would be heaped into a container on the person’s head to carry home.
This is love. We are to go our of our way to bless our enemies even when it’s an inconvenience, even if we don’t feel like it, and even when it causes us a degree of suffering. In this way we introduce our enemies to the love of Christ, and bring the kingdom of heaven to their door. It is, after all, God’s loving kindness that brings us all to repentance.
Grace and Peace,
Continue
“You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.
In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy 3
~Paul
The King of the Jews
“Above His head they placed the written charge against Him: “THIS IS JESUS, THE KING OF THE JEWS” Matthew 27:37
This was the charge. They had pointedly asked Him “Tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.”
He couldn’t deny it.
They immediately surrounded Him and spit on Him. They punched Him with their fists and slapped Him. They mocked Him saying “Prophesy to us, Messiah. Who hit you?”
It had begun.
Meanwhile, Peter had fallen fast and hard. After he denied ever knowing Jesus for the third time, a rooster crowed, just like Christ predicted. Jesus was close enough to look into Peter’s eyes, “And he (Peter) went outside and wept bitterly.” Matthew 26:75
Judas, too, was seized with remorse, and went back to the chief priests and the elders who had paid him money to betray his Friend saying, “I have sinned, for I have betrayed innocent blood.” Matthew 27:4
But they didn’t care, and they didn’t forgive his sin.
The crowd was asking for Barabbas, a notorious insurrectionist and murderer — charges worthy of crucifixion — to be released and for Jesus to take his place.
Why would they want a known murderer back out on the streets, and a man who just a week prior they had celebrated calling Him “Son of David!”?
The murderer hadn’t personally betrayed them, but Jesus had.
Jesus had come into Jerusalem — their beloved city, the city of God — riding on a donkey, a sign of peace. They thought He was their messiah, their savior, their king…and now He was arrested and at the mercy of the leaders.
He didn’t look at all like a savior or a king. He had lied to them, and they were angry.
They shouted “Crucify Him!”
But when Pilate pressed them, they answered “His blood is on us and on our children!” Matthew 27:25
And so it would be. But in His mercy, that was God’s plan all along.
By now Jesus’s face and head would be swollen and dripping with blood, teeth knocked to the ground.
They ordered Him to be scourged.
Prior to crucifixion, Romans routinely used a cat-o’-nine-tails — a whip fixed with small pieces of metal or bone at the end. He would be whipped up to forty times.
His flesh was torn from the bone, exposing organs, tendons, nerves. Blood flowed profusely. His body began to shake with shock, and then it started to shut down.
Then soldiers dragged Him back inside the court room. They took off His clothes and put a scarlet robe on Him and gave Him a staff. Someone ripped a branch off a thorny bush and twisted it into a crown and shoved it on his head, spikes stabbing His flesh. They spit on Him again, grabbed the staff and hit Him in the head over and over. They took the robe and put His clothes back on.The pain was excruciating, but there was still the road to Golgotha.
A crossbeam weighing a hundred pounds was heaved onto his mangled, screaming back. He struggled and stumbled under the weight of it, and Simon from Cyrene was pulled from the crowd to carry His cross.
Some prisoners were only tied to their crosses. Nailing was left for those who were seen as especially heinous.
His clothes were taken and He was laid on the ground while large nails were driven through flesh and bone, sending burning pain up through His arms and legs. He was heaved up onto the main beam, and a sign naming His charge was nailed to the top:
THIS IS JESUS, THE KING OF THE JEWS.
Through all of it every word He spoke was full of grace and mercy and compassion and forgiveness.
Even through the magnitude of His torture, none of it matched the pain of the sin — from the garden where sin began to the end of time – that was heaped upon Him. Every vile murder, every sickening rape, every twisted abuse, every act of adultery… Peter’s and Judas’s betrayal. Yours and mine. Every sin was laid on Him.
And He bore it all with love.
Once our sin was paid for, it was up to us to choose whether or not to accept that payment.
Judas chose to confess his sin to the wrong men. No one has authority to forgive sin but God though the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. Confession to anyone else is futile. In his overwhelming guilt, he hung himself.
Peter would face Christ and his sin would be forgiven, his guilt and shame forever taken away.
Jesus once asked His friends, “Who do you say I am?” Matthew 16:15
He asks every one of us that same question. People who lived near Jesus believed all kinds of things about Him, but only one thing was true: He really was the King of the Jews, and of anyone who would call on His Name. But His kingdom wasn’t an earthly one. They wanted to make Him king, but He wasn’t just king, savior, messiah, He was King, Savior, Messiah! His kingdom was a spiritual one. He was King of all kings, with all power and authority, for all time and eternity. He was and is more than they could have ever imagined.
My friend, if you don’t already know it, Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, and that includes you. He died for your sins so you don’t have to. So you can be free of the weight and the guilt and shame. So you can live in peace and know you have a home waiting in heaven.
God loves you. It’s why He sent His Son to the cross. Confess your sin to Him today, and He promises to forgive you, for “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other Name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:12
Perhaps you’re angry at God. Maybe you’ve accused Him of some wrongdoing, like the crowd had. Their expectations drove them into sin, but they would have a chance to confess and be forgiven, too. Soon they would see that everything Jesus claimed to be was true, because the story was just beginning…
Never Say Never
Jesus and His friends had just finished eating Passover supper, where Jesus revealed to them that Judas would betray Him. I wonder at the thoughts that ran through the minds of the eleven, perhaps looking at Judas in horror and judgment, saying to themselves they would never do that.
Jesus then used the bread and the cup to remind them again that He was about to give up His body and His blood as a sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins. He looked into their eyes and urged them “…do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
“When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Then Jesus told them, ‘This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written:
‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.’ (Zechariah 13:7)
Peter replied, ‘Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.’
‘Truly I tell you,’ Jesus answered, ‘this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.’
But Peter declared, ‘Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.’ And all the other disciples said the same.
Matthew 26:31-35
They stood at the Mount of Olives – a mountain ridge that held not only olive groves, but cemeteries, as well. Surely there the gravity of the circumstances would sink into their hearts. And suddenly He was telling them that not only would Judas betray them, but the rest of them would, too.
The disciples’ response to Him showed they still trusted in themselves over Jesus and over the prophecy laid out in God’s Word. It was this thinking – their pride, their self-sufficiency, their leaning on their own understanding – that led them to fall away.
They had allowed the seeds of pride sin to be planted in their minds and they were budding. Soon they would see how watering those seeds with pride and fear would quickly grow them into weeds that were out of control.
Never say, “I would never do that…” Never judge another person’s actions and say “I would never…”
The Lord knows what we are capable of. He warns us today the way He warned his friends that night. He tells us to “Be alert. Be watchful. Be prayerful. Be humble. Be sober in your thinking of yourselves.”
If we haven’t done or said something that shocked us then we haven’t yet faced the kind of overwhelming fear that could lead us to betraying Christ.
But times are changing fast. It should come as no surprise to anyone that conditions are becoming more and more hostile toward Believers. What are we willing to give up to follow Christ? Our friends? Our family? Our reputations? Our livelihood? Our freedom?
We have yet to face anywhere near the kind of pressure the disciples faced on the night they ran and hid and denied ever knowing Christ.
They all meant what they said that night as they stood among the olive trees, burial caves and tombstones, but in just 24 hours they would come to find out just how shallow and immature their faith still was.
But faith grows in the face of trouble.
Of course Jesus knew who and what they were, that they were still spiritual babes. He would give them another chance to heed His warning, as God’s mercy often does. He would lead them to the garden, taking Peter, James and John even closer.
Grow closer, my friends. Don’t wait until the enemy makes it personal…makes you choose. Choose Him now. Be resolute to walk with Him all the way to the cross.
Tomorrow: The Garden
Is He god or God?
He had performed miracles, taught in the Synagogues, cast out demons, healed the sick, raised the dead, forgave sin. And if that weren’t enough…
He claimed to be King.
“Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your King is coming to you, lowly, and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.’” Matthew 21:5
He claimed to be the fulfillment of prophecy.
“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. Matthew 5:17
He claimed to be the long-awaited Messiah.
“The woman said to Him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ). ‘When He comes, He will tell us all things.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am He.’” John 4:25-26
He claimed to be the Son of God.
“He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered and said, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.’” Matthew 16:15-17
He claimed to be the Son of Man.
For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” Matthew 12:8
He claimed to be the only way to heaven.
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6
He claimed to be the King of the Jews.
“Now Jesus stood before the governor. And the governor asked Him, saying, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ Jesus said to him, ‘It is as you say.’” Matthew 27:11
Jesus was all that and so much more. And the Israelites were thrilled, for a while. But they had expectations of their Messiah that were simply not true.
They expected Him to set up an earthly kingdom, to end their suffering, to take over rule and provide for them, to sit on a throne and be their king.
And it’s in those wrong expectations where things went awry.
Things can go awry for us, too, when we conjure up in our minds a god who simply does not exist. When life happens and what we expect this god of our imaginations – the god we’ve set inside our parameters, in our little box – to be and to do for us does not happen. When we want God to conform to our image of Him, and we set up this false god as an idol and worship him, and then tragedy strikes, prayers aren’t answered, what we hear is silence, we can begin to shout “crucify Him!”
Oh, we may not use those words. We may just stop praying, or reading the Bible, or going to church. We may stop trusting, or witnessing, or believing. We may just stop walking with Him.
Throughout the week we’ll see that the disciples did that very thing. Instead of listening and learning and believing the truth, even in the face of overwhelming fear, instead of allowing their expectations of a limitless, righteous, holy God Who can never put in a box to be changed, instead of throwing away their pride, they turned back. They scattered. They hid themselves in the darkness of the world.
But, there is redemption…
Badge of Honor
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’” John 15:18-25
“Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death.You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” Matthew 10:21-22
More and more I’m seeing headlines about someone in America being sued or fired because of their faith in Christ. This is of course just a small taste of the persecution Christians and Jews are facing around the world.
And every time I see one of those headlines I’m as surprised and disgusted as anybody. But we can’t be; we must expect it. Persecution is increasing, and we need to prepare ourselves that we may one day see it knock on our own door. Jesus warned the apostles and He warns us now: we will be hated.
The word for hated in these verses means to detest, especially to persecute. This is not your run of the mill kind of hatred. It’s not just a feeling. This is hatred that is so vile and deep that it moves the person to act on their hatred, to systematically and methodically harm a person or group.
What I find interesting is that this is the complete opposite of compassion, which is to be so deeply filled with sympathy that it moves a person to action. Regardless of how much Christ was hated, He consistently demonstrated compassion His whole life. He’s our example of how to live a holy life in the face of persecution.
The Spirit enables us, we just need to decide if we’re willing. Let God take care of the persecutors, we must be faithful to Christ, to pray and to live holy and upright lives, not giving the enemy a foothold.
Jesus makes a point to remind us though, that all this is not without the hope of our promised salvation and reward.
In the meantime, we can pray to have the same attitude as the apostles who were arrested and jailed by the high priest and the Sanhedrin – people who claimed to know God and should have believed in His Son alongside the apostles – for teaching and healing in the name of Christ.
The apostles were flogged, ordered not to speak in the name of Jesus (which they promptly disobeyed) and let go. And Acts 5:41-42 says “The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.”
Rejoicing because they had been counted to worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. From our own perspective it’s an awful thing to suffer persecution, but from a spiritual standpoint, the apostles saw it as a badge of honor. It meant they were living their lives for Christ in such a way that they suffered as their Lord had said they would. It meant the Spirit was moving, lives were being changed, souls were being convicted…and the enemy was not happy.
But I’d give anything to see the smile on Jesus’s face as He watched them fulfill what He called them to do.
In His great grace,
The Power of the Spoken Word
“And God said, ‘Let there be light…'” Genesis 1:3
Not one other person existed when God created the world so there was no one else to hear Him, and yet He spoke it into existence. He didn’t just think it, He said it. Why? Because there is power in the spoken word.
And there are no other words more powerful than those written in scripture, no other author more sovereign than the one who spoke the world into existence.
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy 3:16-17
Today is World Read Aloud Day (which I personally think is fantastic). And what better words to read out loud than God’s Word? Can you imagine if believers all around the world today opened their Bibles and breathed aloud God’s eternal truth? If we drowned out the hateful words that fill the air with God’s exceedingly more powerful word of love? If we spoke the light within us into the darkness; if we stormed the gates of hell with the pillars of life, if we filled the heavens with the ancient way of the Almighty God in the face of the enemy who seeks to threaten the very lives of believers in some parts of the world and increasingly hardens hearts and minds toward believers everywhere?
Ask the Lord to put on your heart a portion of scripture to read aloud today and then make it a prayer. It might not feel effective (and I’m sure the enemy will tell you that very thing), but remember, God began the universe with four words.
The Fiercest Battle
Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn
“‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.
Matthew 10:34-36
Whoa. That is some pretty inflammatory language Jesus is using here. Did not come to bring peace? A sword? Enemies?
What on earth could Jesus be talking about?
First, we need to understand who He’s talking to. Jesus is giving instruction to the twelve disciples as He sends them out, specifically to the Jews, as His witnesses to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with skin diseases and drive out demons.
But before they head out, they need to understand His message, and what they’ll be up against. Many, even the disciples, were under the impression that when the Messiah came He would set up His kingdom on earth and reign over all, bringing peace, ending famine and wars.
But Jesus makes it clear that is not His mission. Not yet, anyway.
As they went, they were to proclaim this message: the kingdom of heaven is near. The Messiah has come.
And He came to be the fulfillment of the law.
The law showed us we were sinners, and sin requires a payment of death. Jesus came to die in our place to pay for our sins. He came to make truth known, even as He Himself is truth. But not everyone wants to hear that they’re a sinner. And of those who know they’re a sinner, not everyone wants to be saved from it.
Jesus references the words of the prophet Micah in Micah 7:6. Micah lamented about the terrible times in which he lived when sin was rampant, and there were few who held onto faith and righteousness. And many of those who did found that their sons or daughters or other family members fell into the other camp—the one that reveled in immorality–and that caused strife, to say the least.
Centuries later, the disciples would find that, again, there would be relatively few who would choose faith and righteousness, even among the ancient sons and daughters of God. Few who would choose to align themselves with the truth—Jesus Christ. The disciples themselves would be among the few who stood in a world full of people who would rather deny the Christ and live in their own sinfulness. Even then the disciples were unaware that there was one among them, a friend, a fellow servant, who would choose sin over Christ.
And now, centuries later, the story is the same. Sin is rampant and there are few in this world who acknowledge their sin and put their faith in Christ. And even among those who call themselves Christians, there are fewer still who are willing to submit their whole lives to Him, leave the world behind, take up their crosses daily and live upright lives before their God.
And for those who do, for those who know that truth triumphs over sin and evil and destruction and death, for those who desire to live in that truth, we will, sooner or later, be called on to make a choice.
Someone we love, a close friend, a fellow servant, someone in our own family, someone who doesn’t adhere to the truth, will want to sin and drag us along with them. They won’t understand why we won’t do this or allow that. And a son will be against his father, a daughter against her mother, a fellow servant against another.
And a battle will ensue. This is the metaphoric sword Jesus speaks of.
The battle could get bloody. Sharp words may well be thrown our way. Wounds will be inflicted. Relationships could die. We could feel as though our heart is being ripped clean out of our chest. And all the while we’ll need to keep loving them and praying for them.
The inner struggle will be to not to let our flesh take over, to not retaliate with harsh words of our own, but to keep praying, remembering we don’t battle against flesh and blood but against an enemy we cannot see.
Prayer is the real battleground, and whether or not we choose to remain in prayer is where the battle will be won or lost.
Through it all we might have an inkling of the pain Christ suffered on the cross.
Are we willing to risk it all for Him? Is His cause our cause?
It’s at this moment when the foundation of our faith will be revealed. Is it sure? Do we stand on the Rock which does not move, is not shaken and does not compromise? Is our love for Him real?
Or will we falter? Will we choose sin over truth? Now is the time to choose, not when we’re in the heat of battle and the enemy is coming at us full force. Put on the spiritual armor and don’t take it off.
Satan comes to kill, steal and destroy. He will get at us any way he can, even through family members. Especially through family members. He will come and whisper “It’s just a little sin. Just a little compromise won’t hurt. And you love them, right? You don’t want them angry with you.”
If we listen and give in, before we know it we’re far from God, and so is the one we love.
Stand strong.
Love them enough not to compromise. This is not a battle for mere ground or castles or other earthly kingdoms. This is a battle for hearts and eternities.
And love Christ more. He saved us and He wants to save the other person in our lives whose ways are at odds with His, whose heart is far from Him and whose eternity will be a bitter one unless they have a lighthouse to show them the way.
Better than keeping a false, temporary peace, be a light shining the truth of God, so they can find their way to Him and experience real, lasting, eternal peace.
One day you may see a glimmer of hope. You’re gaining ground. Hearts are softening. Christ is winning.
“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9