INTERNATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER FOR THE PERSECUTED CHURCH

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. …

 

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Mark 1:14-15 (AMP) “Now after John was arrested and put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the good news (the Gospel) of the kingdom of God, and saying, The [appointed period of] time is fulfilled (completed), and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent (have a change of mind which issues in regret for past sins and in change of conduct for the better) and believe (trust in, rely on, and adhere to) the good news (the Gospel)”.

Now here is the Author of Salvation Himself – the Lord Jesus – saying PLAINLY – REPENT AND BELIEVE! It is no accident the Lord phrased it in THAT order. Anything else is Easy Believism. It is easy to sit in church during a particularly inoffensive sermon in America, pray a closing prayer at Invitation time, agree in one’s heart (or raise your hand, walk the aisle…whatever)…and think you’re saved! But are we really?
The debate over the pejorative “Lordship Salvation” and Free Grace is over the issue of Repentance. To be sure, the so-called Free Grace proponents have a point in that Grace is free to those who will believe. But think of the Thief on the Cross for a minute. When he rebuked the other thief by saying that he and the other thief deserved to be punished with the death penalty (while Christ was innocent), THIS thief was in the process of Repentance with a brief period of time to accomplish it! He acknowledges his sins before the Lord before saying “Lord remember me when You come into Your Kingdom!” This thief followed Mark 1:15 above!
There is no way Repentance is Good Works as the “Free Gracers” call it. I was at a concert just feet away from the popular Christian singer Natalie Grant, who boldly declared “I am sick and tired of those who say if you don’t repent, you’re going to Hell”! She had it right! What do you think “making your peace with God” means?!!! Think about it.
Only in America can this kind of debate go on. Sometimes I think we have too much time on our hands, as we consider the 300 million Christians who are persecuted daily in the underground Chinese Church! Read the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1-23) again and decide for yourself where the theory of Easy Believism, as practiced in most American churches would fit! Then transpose that revelation to Mark 1:14-15 and the process described by Christ Himself. Decide for yourself if there is any connection.
Then decide for yourself if He is Lord of your life NOW or in some future time in Eternity! For me, Christ is not only my Savior NOW, but my LORD and THE LORD OF MY LIFE NOW! If that makes me a Lordship Salvation dude like Ray Comfort or John MacArthur or Paul Washer or Nancy Lee DeMoss…let’s roll!

Being TRULY saved and being made an adopted son/daughter of God means we are immediately living in the Eternals, and are part of that Inheritance from Creation. It is the Lord Who caused this and HE IS THE LORD! In my own walk with Christ, I knew I was not truly saved until I repented of my sins, and for me that included writing them down on a piece of paper and confessing them in tears. It was almost as if I could hear the Lord smiling as I finally got “IT”! The Apostle Paul says in Romans 7:7 “I would not have known sin BUT for the Law!” Law without Grace is Works. But does this verse mean Paul is for good works??!! NO! If your sin and recognizing it before a Holy God does not drive you to your knees, friends, I would question if the Sower’s seed fell on clay soil, rocks or fertile soil!
As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord in Repentance and acceptance of Christ as the Lord and Master of our lives, in Jesus’ Name, amen.