Suffering for Christ

A couple of weeks ago we looked at the passage from Colossians that talked about as Christians we should expect to suffer for our faith. We talked about how we are most like Christ when we suffer for our faith and are persecuted for our faith.

I don't know what suffering is. Most of us in America don't. We don't suffer from a lack of the basic necessities of life (food, water, shelter, clothing), and we certainly don't know what it's like to be persecuted for our faith. To us, persecution happens when we are dismissed as irrelevant by society because of our faith in Christ. When someone laughs at us because we take the Bible literally....when someone smirks because we say Jesus is the only way to heaven....or when someone rejects us when we try to share the gospel with them. That's not really persecution is it? Maybe it's a mild form of it, but for lack of anything more harsh, that's what we know persecution to be.

When I think of Persecution I think of Paul, imprisoned for his steadfast insistence that Jesus was Lord. I think of people like Jim Eliot and those with him who were martyred by the Aucans for trying to take the gospel to that once unreached people group. But that doesn't happen any more, right? This is the modern era....the world is more civilized now, right?

WRONG!

Unfortunately, this still goes on, even today. Take this story for example. I get a weekly prayer update from Voice of the Martyrs , and this morning I received the following update:

CHINA- Prominent House Church Leader’s Sons Assaulted by Chinese Police – China Aid Association

On October 16, Zhang Jian, the elder son of Pastor “Bike” Zhang Mingxuan, was severely beaten by Public Security Bureau (PSB) officials in Beijing, China Aid Association (CAA) reported. Zhang Jian was at home with his mother, Xie Fenglan, when PSB officials entered their residence and secured the exits before severely beating him with iron bars for nearly half an hour. “As Zhang lay bleeding profusely, his mother called the ambulance, but the receptionist told her that a higher government authority gave a directive not to dispatch an ambulance to rescue Zhang because he is related to Pastor Bike,” CAA reported. “Xie Fenglan called her younger son, who rushed to the house and was also beaten by the same authorities,” CAA added. After some time a family friend took Zhang Jian to a local emergency room, where doctors said he was so severely beaten that he may lose sight in his right eye. The family has not been able to contact Pastor Bike, who was traveling at the time of the attack, and they fear he might have been detained by authorities. Pray for Zhang Jian and his younger brother’s quick recovery from the attack. Ask God to protect Pastor Bike and his entirely family during this challenging time. Praise God for this family’s faithfulness to risk their all for the sake of the gospel.

This happened in China, the day before my birthday...last Thursday. While I was getting ready to blow out 42 candles on my birthday cake, a brother in Christ was being beaten to within an inch of his life simply because he was a Christian, and simply because his father was a pastor of a church. THAT is persecution. And it happens every day in places all over the world like Sudan, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Iran, China, Myanmar, etc. Fellow brothers and sisters in Christ are being dragged out of their home and beaten, imprisoned, tortured, and in many cases murdered for their faith in Jesus Christ.

This drives me to two points of action. First of all prayer, and secondly, to live more boldly for Christ here in America.

The one thing that persecuted believers all over the world continue to ask for is prayer. They ask that we lift them up and pray for them....not to be delivered from persecution and not prayer for the poersecution to necessarily stop. They know better than we that throughout history, when the church is persecuted it becomes stronger and more committed and ultimately grows. What they ask is that we pray for them to be strong amidst the persecution. To be able to stand up under it and still keep the faith. They want us to pray that their faith would be stronger, and that they never give up. If you know the Lord, why not pause some time today and pray for your brothers and sisters in Christ who are suffering for their faith right now.

Also, November 9th is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. Spend time specifically on that day, learning about and praying for persecuted Christians throughout the world. For more information on the persecuted church, checkout these sites:

• http://www.persecution.com/ - Voice of the Martyrs website; informaiton about persecuted Christians.




• http://www.opendoorsusa.org/ - Open Doors, a ministry of prayer and missions to persecuted Christians.



• http://www.operationworld.org/ - a site based on the prayer resource by Patick Johnstone, "Operation World" detailing prayer requests for every country on the planet.

The second thing that learning about the reality of modern-day persecution of Christians drives me to do is to be more bold about my faith. I'm not persecuted for my faith in America. I don't know what its like to suffer for my faith like these brothers and sisters in China and the Sudan do. I shouldn't take for granted the freedom I have to read my Bible in public, to share the gospel with my neighbor, and to pray outloud in a restaurant without fear of persecution. One of the best ways I can honor the Christians who have been martyred and the Christians who are being persecuted at this very moment all around the world, is to live out my faith more boldly.

Who knows...perhaps this day may be the last day we have with this kind of freedom. May we not take it for granted!