Praying for the Persecuted Church

Sunday was a day Christian churches set aside to pray for the persecuted church. It used to seem like persecution was what happened on the other side of the world. We are all aware of the killings of our Christian brothers and sisters in Asian and Muslim countries. We are aware of the dangers that missionaries face going into tribal areas and eastern bloc countries. Most of us know believers in our own country who were rejected by family members when they became Christians or who were punished or made fun of when they refused to take part in ungodly behaviors. As I was sitting in my 9:00 o'clock service in California, a small Baptist Church in Texas was under attack by an active shooter who killed 26 people and injured over twenty more. This was the third church shooting and to be honest, my heart just hurts. It hurts for the lives lost. It hurts for the families grieving the loss of loved ones so abruptly. It hurts for those who have been forever changed by the trauma they experienced in what should have been a sacred meeting. While we don't yet know the shooter's motives, we can view the hate speech posted beneath the posts of the news clips. Our country has definitely entered a new era and I believe every believer will experience persecution just like those in other countries. 

How we respond to persecution is important. We would do well to remember Jesus’ words in John 18:15-20, "If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you; 'A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.'"  We are often surprised when people express hatred toward us, especially when they can hide behind online posts. The question we must ask ourselves is how do we respond? There are several things we must consider. 

First, we must remember that there is a very real enemy who is doing everything he can to destroy God's people because they have the potential to reflect Jesus to the world. The more believers become like Jesus the more he will attack them. Jesus warned us, and if we believe him we won't be surprised. We can be prepared and ready to stand firm in our faith in the face of persecution. We can also choose to make sure we respond the way Jesus would want us to and that is not with hatred.   

Second, we want to remember some people get angry with us because of the moral values we have and the moral voice we have in this country. This is because the world doesn't want to call certain acts sin. When they are around us, and have conversations with us or discuss politics with us, they may have to face painful truths about decisions they have made and it sometimes is easier to be angry at moral truths and those holding to them than to face up to one's choices that took another's life as in abortion, or come to terms with how they have deeply wounded others through choices they have made through pornography, sexual harassment, sexual abuse, sexual conquests, easy divorce, verbal abuse, etc. Their hatred and anger is often covering deep shame. We want to remember shame is a very painful emotion we all go to great lengths to avoid. That is the root of gossip, critical spirits, judgments, and even self-condemnation. Maybe the more transparently we share our stories and our own struggles with deep shame, and how choosing to deal honestly with it by bringing those shameful things to the Lord, His light sets us free from it. Our church has begun to tell stories and I believe through those honest and transparent stories, people are going to find that they, too, can face the shameful things of their pasts and find forgiveness and freedom from shame that for many drives their hatred of all that stands for God. 

Third, we want to remember that some people are also angry at believers because they are deeply angry at God. Some of them experienced deep pain at the hands of people who claimed to be believers. Some of them were also deeply wounded when others in the church didn't protect or help them. Some were judged harshly by church members when they chose to remove themselves from violent marriages, marriages that were tainted by pornography, or to protect children from sexual predators. They not only feel deserted and misunderstood by the church, they feel abandoned by God. We want to build relationships that allow us to find out the backstory of those who don't trust God and His people and be the ones who will take a hit and hear an accusation in order to gain the opportunity to show them God as He really is.   

Finally, we can pray for the persecuted church as we come to grips that that includes us. The following is my prayer: 

Heavenly Father, I pray the Holy Spirit would strengthen ever believer who is being persecuted, whether it be with words, with rejection, with imprisonment, with physical violence, or with death. Lord, please let every believer facing persecution or the loss of loved ones due to persecution know how much you love them. Help them to be settled to the core that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, not things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate them from Your love. (Ro. 8-38-39) I pray that all believers, persecuted or not, would love fiercely and share fearlessly about Jesus. 

Lord, I pray for those who are persecuting believers through their actions, words, and attitudes. I pray that they would be impacted by the love we have for one another. I pray that they would come to the place that they would become believers like Paul who had been responsible for ravaging the early church. 

Please help every persecuted believer to be resilient and enduring, even if it is unto death. Please, fill the emotional needs of those being rejected and for those being harassed for their faith. Please provide for physical needs of those being fired, disowned, or displaced because of their faith. I pray that each one would glorify God through their witness. Lord, I pray that believers would have access to your Word and that they would find your words a comfort.

Lord, I pray for those being martyred because of their faith. I pray that you would fill each one of them with Your Spirit as you did your servant Stephen, that they, too, would gaze into heaven and see the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And each would say, 'Behold, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.'" 

Lord, we know you have already defeated the enemy at the cross. We know that the time of the Gentiles is going to come to an end. As persecution becomes more rampant, help us stand firm in the faith with our eyes forever fixed on Jesus. I believe even now You are in the process of setting the table for the Wedding Feast of the Lamb and you are coming for your Bride, the church. May we live in hope and in victory, knowing that the Lion of Judah is on the move. 

Suffering Well--Paul, the Man who Suffered Well

One of the most influential people in the early church was Paul. He was a Jewish man who was devoted to the Jewish faith. As a leader of the Jews, he defended the Jewish faith against Christianity and was responsible for persecuting members of the early church. He approved the execution of Stephen and ravaged churches, dragging both men and women from them and throwing them into prison. When Paul was on his way to Damascus, he could be heard was breathing threats and murder against the believer--so strong was he hatred of believers.

On that journey to Damascus God revealed Himself to Paul and confronted him for persecuting His church. God struck Paul with blindness so he couldn't continue his journey and then sent Ananias to lay hands on Paul so he could receive his sight. Ananias was reluctant to go because Paul had a reputation for harming and murdering believers. But God assured Ananias because He had chosen Paul to become  an instrument to carry the gospel to Gentiles,to kings, and to Israel. He also told him that he was going to show Paul how much he would suffer for His name's sake.

The first way Paul suffered was in facing the truth that he had been responsible for brutally persecuting Christ's church and born responsibility for stoning Stephen. We often think grace is easy, but to fully experience it we must fully acknowledge sin and grieve the harm we have done to others. When Paul fell in love with Jesus, He also came to the realization he harmed the people Jesus loved. Because of the depth of his sin, Paul experienced heights of grace and that grace motivated him to lay aside everything to serve God with His whole life. He suffered well by choosing not to wallow in shame and grief, but to embrace God's grace, drawing joy from doing what God called him to do.

There were many other ways Paul suffered. He would go to one community and share the gospel and be received and invited to stay. He would build relationships and teach those who were saved and then he would prepare to leave and the painful goodbyes caused great grief. Then were other communities he entered only to be rejected and cast out. The call to the missionary life required him to love well even with the possibility of rejection. It required that he love well and not let his heart grow cold with the many goodbyes he faced. He suffered well by choosing to keep his heart open to all people.

Paul's testimony even landed him jail with Silas. They were  arrested, stripped of clothing, beaten with rods and thrown into prison because they shared the gospel. Paul and Silas chose to suffer well by spending their time in prison praying and singing hymns to God. While they were singing, there was a great earthquake which shook the foundations of the prison causing the doors to open and the bonds to fall off. When the jailer woke up and saw the doors open, he was going to kill himself, but Paul intervened and led him and his family to the Lord. The magistrates ordered the city to let Paul and Silas go, and it would have been easy for Paul to just leave, but he chose not to leave. Instead, he asked, as a Roman citizen, to be given a public apology.

Paul also was caught in a horrible two week storm on a ship. The sailors wanted to abandon ship and escape on the life boats, but Paul told them they would survive if they stayed with him because God had told him he would speak to Caesar. Food ran low and they went without food for two weeks. They were cold and hungry when their ship wrecked on Malta. While building a fire, Paul was bitten by an asp, causing many to believe he was a sinful man. But when he didn't die, they changed their minds and he held a healing ministry and out of gratitude they provided their needed supplies for the rest of the journey.

To share the gospel Paul endured affliction, hardship, calamity, beatings, imprisonment, riots, labor, sleeplessness, poverty, hunger, and cold. To share the gospel Paul faced slander, being treated as an impostor, being beaten and left for dead, being stranded in the sea. To share the gospel Paul faced both the humility of having others provide his needs and at other times he worked all day and preached all night because no one funded his mission.

Paul faced a life of service with full knowledge that he would suffer and he suffered well by facing it with patience, kindness, and love. He suffered well by speaking truth in every circumstance no matter the risk. He suffered well by depending on the Holy Spirit to empower him. He suffered well by being obedient to share the gospel whether it was received or not. Paul chose to suffer well by dying to self and living to God. He suffered well by accepting the sorrow that came with being God's instrument of grace. He suffered well by learning to rejoice and keeping his heart open. Paul gave the reason that he suffered well, "But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God."

I think one of the reasons we don't suffer well is that we believe we deserve a life of ease, but we haven't been promised ease. We've been called to be his ambassadors and the greater the darkness the brighter we can shine. No matter where we live and what we experience, we can choose to suffer well by remembering these things:

• Nothing happens in our lives that hasn't been filtered through His love scarred hands.  
• God cares more about sanctification and grow than He cares about comfort. 
• We are called to love like Jesus loves and loving like Him can hurt, but God will comfort us as we lean into Him.
• God may have us suffer so others will be drawn to Him through our testimonies. 
• The suffering we endure now is nothing compared to what we will experience in glory.
• Suffering is never proof that God has deserted us. 

I wonder what impact we would have on our world if we became more like Paul and quit valuing comfort over obedience and the suffering that may come with it. I wonder what impact we would have if we choose to focus on Jesus and stay the course He's plotted for our lives instead of running from discomfort. I wonder what would happen if we ceased being surprised by hardship and embraced the work it does in our lives. I wonder how differently we would approach life if we kept in mind Peter's warning, "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you." Oh, that we would choose to suffer well by facing trials with faith and allow God to walk us through them. Oh, that we would trust the work that suffering does in our hearts and in the hearts of those we love.

Stuck by a Thorn

"To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassing great revelations, 
there was given me a thorn in my flesh, the messenger of Satan, to torment me. 
Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 
But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, 
so that Christ's power may rest on me. 
That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, 
in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
2 Corinthians 12:7-10

God gave His Apostle, Paul, visions of things to come. Those visions were so wonderful Paul found them impossible to describe. Visions could have become a source of pride, but God allowed Satan to give Paul what he called a "thorn in his flesh." We assume that the thorn was a weakness that was designed to keep him humble. We can better understand this passage by looking at the definitions of two key words. The first definition of a thorn is "a sharp stake used for torturing or impaling someone" which could imply that Paul's "thorn" was a physical pain, causing him great stress. The other word is "torment" which comes from the word "buffet" which means "to beat, to strike with the fist." When Paul was feeling the affects of his affliction, he literally felt like he was being pounded with a sharp stake. This description would indicate that Paul found it uncomfortable experiencing his human weaknesses. Other's believe his thorn was a weakness in his flesh. This makes sense, too, for when a person loves God like Paul did, besetting temptations are painful to the soul and can come upon us so quickly we feel we are being punched in the gut by pressure to sin. 

Sometimes we suffer because of our sin and at other times we suffer because of the sin of others. We may suffer because of God-allowed or God-orchestrated trials. We want to remember God uses trials to build godly character. My grandfather used to polish rocks to make jewelry. He put them in a tumbler with some water and sand and the rocks tumbled over each other and the sand for weeks. When he took them out they were no longer just ordinary rocks. They had become shiny, smooth rocks full of beautiful colors that weren't observable before. This life is God's tumbler and the sand is the various trials we experience in life. He is breaking away all that is not lovely or holy as trials and other people bump into us. As He wears away fleshly parts, it can hurt because He's deflating pride and putting us in the position to see how much we need Him. We want to remember difficult circumstances are always an invitation to intimacy with God, who delights in us and desires to bless us. One of the most significant blessings is His Grace, which doesn't just remove difficulties or just forgives us of sin. Grace is also the promise that God is and will continue to purify us from the inside out. 

Paul asked God to deliver him from his "thorn" three times, but the answer was "No"! However, God promised Paul His grace would be sufficient. Amazingly, Paul knew God had not deserted him. Maybe because of his heavenly visions, he understood this world we live in is a temporary home and would include pain and suffering. Paul didn't sin by asking God to remove the thorn; he obeyed Him by casting his cares upon him and asking others to pray for him. He had churches to visit, missionary journeys to take, letters to write, dangers to face, counseling to accomplish, sermons to write, and conflicts to settle. We can't blame him for wanting to be free of his “thorn.” However, maybe it was his " thorn" that commanded his continual dependence on God and intimacy with God that flowed from it that allowed God to manifest his power in Paul's weakness. Out of his dependence on God, Paul's letters were penned and those letters would not have been as rich and full of God’s mercy and truth had Paul not depended on Him. His sermons would not have had the same impact on the early church had he not been transparent in his walk. Paul’s words would not have had the same comfort for those suffering had his life been trouble free. Paul understood "thorns" served a purpose, while knowing the same God who can heal or remove them is the same God who has the right not to. Paul recognized in his weaknesses, he experienced God's glorious power. He faced weaknesses, insults, hardships persecution, and difficulty. 

I can so relate this to difficult relationships I've had. I can relate it to painful circumstances that left deep wounds now turned to scars. I can relate it to painful memories of failures that occasionally still haunt me. I can relate it to the times people misunderstood my heart and my motives and accused me of things I never thought of doing. I can relate it to the ever presence of an eating disorder that still at times beacons  me to follow it instead of God who I know loves me. I can relate it to the pain that rises in my bones that is a constant reminder of painful breaks and isolated months of healing. 

But this I know...when my body hurts, it is an invitation to receive God’s strength. When I am feeling depressed, it is an invitation to hang on to His joy, so that I don't despair. When I am feeling stressed, it is an opportunity to let Him give me His peace. When I am grieving, it is an invitation to let God turn my mourning into dancing. I know I when I struggle with physical weaknesses or with spiritual temptation, I can let Him walk me through it with His strength. God's power and peace and grace can only be comprehended in the backdrop of weaknesses, trials, and need. I am so thankful for intimacy with the all-powerful, holy, and exalted God who has invited me to call Him Abba—Daddy! I am thankful He is true to His Word.

Prayer: Father, suffering is so hard to write about. For me, it has been an invitation to intimacy with YOU! I am also fully aware that others suffer in ways I have not and in ways I never will. I don't want to be pretentious or discount pain, but I want them to know You are there. You promise You will be sufficient for them. Please wrap your arms around those who are hurting. Please open the eyes of those who are hungry to be loved to your pure and holy love and teach them to receive it and be satisfied with it…even during the briar patches of life? For those who serve You and struggle with the flesh, will you draw their minds to you when they are tempted so they experience victory? Please comfort those who are weeping and speak hope into their hearts. Teach us to glory in our weaknesses, to turn to you to be content in Your Grace and Your comfort. Amen.