"Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers and sisters throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings." 1 Peter 5:9
I love this verse. Of course, we are talking about resisting the enemy, avoiding the devil by being strong and standing firm in the faith. And we should. Peter encourages us by sharing that we are not alone. We are not just Christians at Grace Harbor or affiliated with Transformation Ministries, or American Christians. We are part of a worldwide Body of Christ. Billions of believers. We don't stand alone. We stand together as one worldwide church of all those who know Jesus Christ as Savior.
Now for the convicting part. Sure we have the sufferings that we have in common; the suffering of our own sinfulness and our own rebellion. But, let us be honest here. We do not suffer like those who are being persecuted in places where being Christian is illegal, where following Christ is threatened with death. Recently, many Christians have been assassinated and cruelly punished, have had their children abducted, their churches burned and their freedoms and rights trampled.
In the early church, Peter is talking about a kind of suffering that our brothers and sisters around the world understand far better than we do. It seems that the persecuted church is always more committed and focused that the non-persecuted church. I am encouraged that we are united by faith in God, but discouraged that we do not stand with them as much as they stand with us. It seems too easy to ignore the suffering of others when things are not going as badly for us. Although, perhaps because many of us feel pressures in our own lives, the troubles of others, especially overwhelming ones of horrible persecution just seems like too much to consider more deeply. All I know is that we are one in Christ and not a day passes that I don't consider brothers and sisters around the world, some of them little children without any protection being victimized by human trafficking, ethnic cleansing and genocide. These are egregious matters that deserve attention…certainly prayer and some kind of response.
May the Lord lead us in how we can respond and how we can more effectively care for those who are undergoing sufferings we cannot even imagine.
Broken hearted,
Pastor Fred
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment