Rejoice and be exceedingly glad
Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Is He, Jesus in this case, Kidding? Rejoice? Be exceedingly glad? The whole of the beattitudes are filled with this sort of reverse world. Meekness, Mourning, Poverty, Peacemaking all are presented not only as paths to happiness but sources of happiness in themselves. But this is the kingdom of God–which is not of this world. This is life in Christ–which requires us to die to ourselves. This is the wisdom of God–which is foolishness to this world. This is the power of God–which is revealed in our weakness.
Jesus himself refused the deliverance of the hosts of heaven and went to the cross with the mocking title “king of the jews” posted at the top. And yet this is the pathway to His victory over sin and death.
Around the world millions of christians are facing persecution in communist countries like Korea, Laos, Cuba, and China. In Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan christians are under constant threat. Other countries like India have pockets of severe persecution. Will Christianity ultimately fail? According to scripture God ultimately wins.
In the mean time, what are we doing with our liberty? We can have as many Bibles as we like–do we read it? We can attend church freely–do we? Jesus said blessed are we when we are persecuted for His sake–are we willing to do anything for His sake? Millions worship inspite of a threat to their lives.
I remember a church elder who didn’t want a pastor who did pastoral counseling because he feared the church could be sued for malpractice. I thought of the early church and wondered what they might of thought of such a timid pillar of the church as they went to their death by martyrdom.
I wonder if the many christians could even recognize persecution if it punched them in the nose. Secularization seems to have closed many expressions of faith beginning with prayer in school till now military chaplains are being coerced to pray without specific references to Christ. Are we to end up with a sort of universalist establishment church?
But a note of hope. Not too many years ago, the Soviet Union was an establishment of atheism. No one could practice his religion without fear of persecution, and yet there is freedom of religion in the former Soviet Union. Even China offers hope as its persecution seems to diminish.
Remember God wins in the end.
August 21 2008 12:24 pm | Meeting Times