Archive for November, 2011

IDOP 2011

Sunday, November 13th, 2011

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER FOR THE PERSECUTED CHURCH

BACKGROUND AND SEVERAL SPECIFIC PRAYER NEEDS

Most of us will never come face to face with a brother or sister in Christ, from another country, who faces regular and constant persecution by evil – day after day… month after month….year after year….decade after decade!

My good longtime friend and brother in Christ, “P” (not his real name, for obvious reasons) is such a man. Having known this man for about 5 years, am amazed not just at his resilience, but his faithfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ.

P comes from a family of Christians who have been adopted by a network of local churches in a military pagan Buddhist country not far from India. Persecution range from imprisonment, seizing of property, withholding Bibles, beatings, discrimination in employment and just plain brutality.

But he stands up to them, just as Stephen stood up to the Pharisees…or Peter right after Pentecost. The buddhists are always telling him he is bowing down to Americans, thinking they are insulting him. He then has the chance to tell them he is not bowing down to American Christians but to Christ, the Good News which American missionaries bring!

He then asks them, “where is the Good News of the buddha? Where is it?” Of course they can’t answer that because there is not  a shred of Good News in either buddha, islam or any of the new earth/new age garbage promoted by Oprah by ungodly cultists like Eckhart Tolle, Rhonda Byrne, Deepak Chopra and other anti-Christian writers.

Still the persecution P and his people suffer, as harsh and brutal as it is, pales into comparison to what is done to Christians in deepest, darkest African with Christians stuffed into containers in Eritrea. Christians are murdered and their homes burned in Uganda, Nigeria and we all saw the Egyptian islamic regime run over and kill 37 Coptic Christians with tanks weeks ago. …

 

CLICK HERE FOR THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE AND SPECIFIC PRAYER NEEDS FOR THE PERSECUTED CHURCH TODAY AND THIS WEEK

KEY WORD – PERSEVERANCE!

Saturday, November 12th, 2011
Put in modern language, this word (PERSEVERANCE) comes from the LATIN (Like most English words) and means “hang in there” or to continue on; stick to it and well, persist. It implies specifically to NEVER give up.
A couple months ago, on this very blog if you searched, you will find a thorough examination of Hebrews chapter 11, which lists by name, all the major Bible heroes who persevered through trials, temptations and evil, to the end! These names range from Abraham and Moses to Rahab and more!
America was built by people who refused to give up.
Charles Goodyear, the tire man, never gave up until he found way to make rubber flexible, even though he and his family were hungry and cold from poverty, back in the early part of the 19th century.
Elias Howe patented the Sewing Machine in 1846, but do you think he just invented it and it worked right away?!
Milton Hershey, one of the heroes I wrote about in my book DANGER ZONE, whose name is an American Chocolate staple, tried and failed so many times.
I could go into detail on these and more….and did on the Bible heroes, but we get the picture.
All of us – young and old – are called to never give up.
Things are horrible for our young people as most teens and college graduates cannot find jobs – never give up.