Persuaded!

Who Shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

For I am persauded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:35-39

Like most Christians, I have certain passages of Scripture that are particular favorites. But if I had to single out one, this would be it. This is the passage I love most in all of the Word of God. I just felt constrained to post it today. My husband came home from a preaching service last night and he made my heart burn inside me. He had been so gripped by the sermon that he had just heard that he could barely contain himself as he was trying to relate it to me. You may remember the two missionaries whom we knew who were murdered several weeks ago in the country they were serving in. Well, the man who preached the sermon last night was a close friend of theirs and had seen them just hours before their death. His sermon was from this text. You can just imagine. Apparently, when Pastor D. finished preaching, nobody got up. Nobody said ANYTHING. Only the sound of people blowing their noses was heard. Finally, another pastor got up and said that probably the best thing for everybody to do was not to engage in idle chatter, but to go home and pray with their families. My goodness. I wish I could have been there to hear it too.

Guess what Pastor D. pressed hard on the people's hearts? THE PERSECUTED CHURCH. THE PERSECUTED CHURCH. Now I know I wish I'd been there. Folks, we have no idea what some of our brethren are going through because of their love for Christ. People are actually WILLING to suffer for Him. And they ARE suffering for Him. That's because like the Apostle Paul, these saints are PERSUADED. If we can't suffer--at least not yet--let's remember our commitment to prayer. Let's have them in our hearts, so we can REALLY pray.

I missed going to our church's ladies Bible study today, so I didn't get to pray with my sisters about some of the needs in the Voice of the Martyrs magazine, which we do monthly. (You might want to think about doing that in your ladies study.) Also, I'd like to suggest that you make a note on your busy church calendar about the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. This is no time to split hairs over some of the many petty arguments we have in the Church here in America. Let's get on our knees and pray for our brethren together.