Ready

A Christian in a restricted country was arrested and put into prison. It was winter, and he managed to smuggle a blanket into his cell. His cell- mate was not a Christian. The Lord told the Christian, "Give Him your blanket." The Christian replied, "But I'll freeze to death." The Lord continued to press him to give the unbeliever his blanket. Sure enough, the Christian froze to death that night. The other man survived. When he was released, he found a house church. He said to the members. "Im here today because someone gave me his blanket." "But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord, to testify solemnly of the Gospel of the grace of God" (Acts 20:24).

Are You Ready?

Per the August 11, 2012 edition of World Magazine (page 6), a Christian medical doctor in Aleppo, Syria was planning trips for his team to Moldova and Turkey. He was asked how they could leave in the midst of instability and fighting. He said, "We don't combine the crisis in our country with our missions. We combine it with our zeal and burden of the Lord and expansion of His Kingdom." What he meant was that the call of God is the most important consideration. When God calls, we go, no matter what's going on.

If we don't go, we let evil win. We think of all the what if's, and evil is winning. This is what is meant in 1 Corinthians 13:5, "Thinketh no evil" (KJV), or, "Does not take into account a wrong" (NASB). We're not to take evil into consideration when making decisions.

Persecuted Christians in Asia do not pray for regime change. They just reckon with the fact that that's the environment that they're in, and they simply get on with God's business. In Proverbs, it's the sluggard (lazy person) who worries about "lions in the street."

Many a missionary has to consider whether or not they'll take their children into dangerous areas. I know of a missionary family (with five chilren) who serve in South Sudan. Our day of death is set. Persecution does not change that day. Don't let evil win. Serve God regardless of the danger.

Are You Ready? An Abridged Personal Testimony

Most of my life has been characterized by emotional abuse. The Lord led me to trust in Him in March 1970. It was a fear of death that He used to motivate me to seek Him. A girl in my high school graduating class was killed in an automobile accident when I was 19. The Lord used this to show me I could die at any time, and I knew I wasn't ready, though baptized and confirmed. My search ended when I put my faith in Him.

This was the time of the "Jesus freaks." After being filled with the Holy Spirit for the first time, I began to grow, and never stopped.

The lord began putting in my heart to be a missionary even before I was saved, and blessed me to be part of a student trip to Congo in 1969. Missionary service became a reality in the 80's. During that time the Lord did major "heart surgery" enabled me to lay down alot of baggage.

One piece of baggage that is relevant to the "punch line" was forgiveness. The Lord showed me that I had the root of bitterness, and through the very loving and accepting African people, broke down many barriers in my life. He showed me that it was not enough to SAY I forgave someone. I had to cancel their debts, just as He had canceled mine (Colossians 2:14 and Matthew 18:23-35). I had been making my friends pay me back for the emotional debts incurred by many earlier in life, and I had to cancel all that. Jesus had already paid for those sins, and it wasn't fair for me to try to collect payment again.

So I canceled all that, and released my friends from the burden. This transaction miraculously released me from possessiveness and protectiveness, their root cause being bitterness.

After returning home from Africa, I went through a prolonged and very painful wilderness time, corresponding to the children of Israel in the wilderness in Numbers. Through it, the Lord kept working on me and teaching me to trust Him through various trials, stripping away many things that people hold dear. But it was also a time of great blessing, growing, and learning.

In 2007, He brought another friend into my life (the other friends being the Africans), and ushered in a time of blessing similar to the blessings of African friends.

In 2010, the Lord showed me that when I was a small child, I noticed that the person in the family who got the most attention was the one who suffered the most. I decided I wanted to get the most attention. So I set out to be the sufferer, and it worked for me, i.e. I got what I wanted at the time. But it set me up for the emotional abuse I got throughout my life. When I realized that, I said, "I did do that, didn't I? Well, if I decided to be a victim, right now I'm deciding I'm not going to be one any more." Through this means, the Lord broke the cycle of abuse. I still have to work on undoing the habits of abuse, and guarding against going back to those habits.

This new friend was and is a brother to me. His father died last year, and at the funeral, I learned just how much my friend is like his father. His father had blessed many, in spite of his dysfunctional upbringing. The line of people at his viewing extended out the door for two and a half hours. After that, my friend shared, and I wrote down how his father had blessed him as a child, which blessings, he, in turn, passed on to me.

Then I saw that through this friend, the Lord gave back to me all the blessings I surrendered to Him when I canceled those emotional and spiritual debts back in Africa. Isn't the Lord good?

Most recently I have been re-reading a book on the persecuted church. Through this reading, the Lord showed me that through all the trials, lessons, and blessing of my life, He has been preparing me for persecution.

Be Ready

"Christ's suffering is for propitiation; our suffering is for propagation." Joseph Tson, as stated in Suffering: the Sacrifice of Christian Hedonism", by John Piper. and quoted in The Triumphant Church, complied by The Voice of the Martyrs. p. 62.

Brother Andrew said not to defend yourself, but to tell what Jesus has done for you. Ibid (Piper) p. 63.

"...the call of Christ is a call to live a life of suffering that would be foolish to live if there was no resurrection." Ibid. p. 50.

"...most Christians in the prosperous West describe the benefits of Christianity in terms that would make it a good life, even if there were no God and no resurrection>" Ibid. p. 42

"When Paul says, 'If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink,' he did not mean, 'Let's all become lechers.' He means, there is a normal, simple, comfortable, ordinary life of human delights that we may enjoy with no troubling thoughts of heaven or hell or holiness or God - if there is no resurrection from the dead. And what stunned me {Piper} about this train of thought is that many professing Christians seem to aim at just this, and call it Christianity.

"Paul did not see his relation to Christ as the key to maximizing his physical comforts and pleasures in this life. No, Paul's relation to Christ was a call to chosen suffering - a suffering that was beyond what would make atheism 'meaningful' or 'beautiful' or 'heroic.' It was a suffering that would have been utterly foolish and pitiable to choose if there is no resurrection into the joyful presence of Christ." Ibid. pp.48-49. "... it is precisely his {Paul's} hope and quest for that resurrection that sustains and empowers his suffering." Ibid. p. 65.

And this is how ordinary Christians are expected to live.

Be Ready

To be prepared for a disaster is good. But what if the disaster turns out to be long term? Are we prepared to suffer? I believe we are in the great tribulation, but do not plan to defend that position, at least not right now. There are others who share this view, though.

I have been reading on this subject. In an article called "Prepare for the Underground Church - Now", the late Rev. Richard Wurmbrand, founder of The Voice of the Martyrs, shared advice on how to survive persecution, including imprisonment, torture, solitary confinement, and indoctrination.

He said to prepare for it in advance. Don't wait until you are in the midst of it. It will be too late then.

Know the Truth, but be sure you are solidly connected with the Person of Jesus Christ to Whom the Scriptures point. Love Him. Arrive at this before persecution starts. You will forget Scripture under the pressure of persecution. Pastor Wurmbrand even forgot the Lord's Prayer. Jesus will never leave you.

Be sure of the Truth. Whoever doubts will cave. To conquer doubt, think thoroughly. Think through the basic fundamentals of the faith. Most Christians I know don't know how to think their brand of theology through to its logical conclusion.

Learn to do without. Learn to rejoice in it.

Accept that you are part of a Body of believers that includes persecuted Christians. Accept that it will come to you eventually.

Choose to die for Christ rather than be a traitor.

Protect your fellow believers. Learn to keep your mouth shut. Learn to say things without giving yourself and others away. Don't quarrel. Too musch information is given out in quarrels.

Your family must be absolutely supportive of your choice to be persecuted. And stand with your family members who make that choice.

Make mortality your view of life. Torture does not shorten your life. You will die when God says so, and not before.

Learn to see spiritual realities. Stephen did when he was stoned. He saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Pastor Wurmbrand felt the presence of the "great cloud of witnesses" (Hebrews 11&12) when in solitary confinement.

Learn to fill up solitude. Exercise your mind.

Have aliases. Have several names you are known by.

To Make Good on What I Said

It has been so long, I've forgotten what I was going to write about. Shame on me. One idea sticks in my mind, though. There are verses in Song of Solomon in which the king and the bride are extolling one another's body parts. How could that be a picture of the love of Christ and His Church? Doesn't Christ's body have parts? That's you and me! Cannot God describe and honor the people who are parts of His Body? I think so. Scripture says He rejoices over us, so this is not far fetched.