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Tuesday, April 10, 2018

The Staggering Picture of Christian Persecution: An Interview with Johnnie Moore

 Is your perspective on the state of the church worldwide too comfortable? What do you think when you hear about the astonishing escalation in Christian persecution in the 21st century? What should you be doing about it?

Describe the staggering picture of Christian persecution today.
Johnnie Moore: “Staggering”—that’s a good word! The stories in The Martyr’s Oath will stagger you, for sure.
Like the Syrian refugees I met who’d converted to Christianity upon arriving in a neighboring country. Word got back to a jihadist family member still in Syria. He wrote them a letter saying “If you don’t return to Islam I will find you and crucify you.”
The family wrote him back, “We will not leave Jesus, and we are happy to die for him but please don’t crucify us. We are not worthy to die as our savior died.”
Stop and think about that: they’re so willing to die for him, and we struggle so hard to live for him!
A thousand such incidents happen every week!
We’re experiencing the most significant moment of Christian persecution since the first century. We’re literally witnessing 1st century persecution in the 21st century. Pope Francis has said there are more martyrs today than at any other moment, and the persecution isn’t just isolated to a few countries, but more than 60 countries.
The numbers are overwhelming, but I wrote The Martyr’s Oath to get beyond the numbers to the lives of those effected—our forgotten brothers and sisters. Believers like Rose, whose husband and children were beheaded in front of her eyes by terrorists in Nigeria; and as the terrorists chased Rose, they demanded she convert by repeating “Allah Akbar,” but she replied to them every time by screaming “Jesus!” She’s a little lady who’s been through so much—she lost everything—yet she didn’t lose her love for Jesus.
We’re missing the power of our faith, and I’m convinced we’ll only find it through the lives of these dear people. Most Christians will never be able to meet them as I have; so, I’ve decided to document their stories for the greater church.
How do Christians in America deny Jesus?
Johnnie Moore: When a terrorist or a government official demands that you deny Jesus, they’re demanding you exchange your belief in him for something else. In America, we don’t need a terrorist or autocrat to make any such demands. We do it to ourselves all the time with whatever we value above Jesus; whatever pseudo god we put our faith in.
See, I have this conviction that you cannot actually experienced a full Christian life unless you’re being persecuted or are close to those who are. There are so many secrets of the Christian life, and so many miracles that are only accessed when your faith costs you something or costs something for someone whom you care about.
The New Testament books are largely written to persecuted believers or about persecuted believers.
We should not be emphasizing the persecuted church merely one Sunday a year; we should be connected to the persecuted church 52 weeks a year.
In the end, despite all the help I’ve given to persecuted Christians, I’ve always found that I’m the one who’s been helped the most. Their faith has—again and again—helped me find my own again.
We’ll never experience full Christian discipleship if we aren’t persecuted or if we aren’t praying for, praying with, and living alongside those who are.

THE MARTYR’S OATH


I AM A FOLLOWER OF JESUS. I believe he lived and walked among us, was crucified for our sins, and was raised from the dead, according to the Scriptures. I believe he is the King of the earth, who will come back for his church.
As he has given his life for me, so I am willing to give my life for him. I will use every breath I possess to boldly proclaim his gospel. Whether in abundance or need, in safety or peril, in peace or distress, I will not—I cannot—keep quiet. His unfailing love is better than life, and his grace compels me to speak his name even if his name costs me everything. Even in the face of death, I will not deny him. And should shadow and darkness encroach upon me, I will not fear, for I know though persecution may come, I know my battle is not against flesh but against the forces of evil. I will not hate those whom God has called me to love. Therefore, I will forgive when ridiculed, show mercy when struck, and love when hated. I will clothe myself with meekness and kindness so those around me may see the face of Jesus reflected in me, especially if they abuse me.
I have taken up my cross; I have laid everything else down. I know my faith could cost me my life, but I will follow and love Jesus until the end, whenever and however that end may come. Should I die for Jesus, I confess that my death is not to achieve salvation but in gratitude for the grace I’ve already received. I will not die to earn my reward in heaven, but because Jesus has already given me the ultimate reward in the forgiveness of my sins and the salvation of my soul.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen.



In practical terms, how should Christians pray for and help the persecuted church?
Johnnie Moore: Every day ask God to do these things for your persecuted brothers and sisters: provide for them, protect them, and grant them the ability to persevere. You’ll start to pray with more depth when you better educate yourself on what’s happening around the world. A good start is the companion pamphlet to The Martyr’s Oath which is called The Ten Things you Need to Know about the Global War on Christianity. It has all the practical information you need.
How do persecuted Christians around the world feel toward the Bible?
Johnnie Moore: It’s their life and their most cherished possession. It’s their hope and their help. It’s God’s literal words and it helps them press on.
Explain the subtitle of your book, Living for the Jesus They’re Willing to Die For.
Johnnie Moore: It comes from a question that suddenly appeared in my heart after I witnessed 2,000 Bible school graduates take a martyrs oath. The Holy Spirit seemed to whisper to me, “If we worship the same Jesus and have the same Bible, then why do we struggle so hard to live for a Jesus that they’re so willing to die for?”
That question has shaped the last ten years of my spiritual journey. It’s caused me to search my heart again and again. I hope it has the effect on others, through The Martyr’s Oath, that it’s had on me.
How should Christians strengthen themselves to be prepared for persecution and to not let fear overtake their faith?
Johnnie Moore: I believe God gives us special grace to help us in moments of persecution. But I also believe he often uses his own words deposited in our hearts. We “must not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
What are lessons to be learned from persecuted Christians forgiving their tormentors?
Johnnie Moore: Jesus’ forgiveness of our sins is the single most impactful part of the gospel, and when we forgive others who sin against us we’re shining his light most brilliantly. Every act of forgiveness brings a touch of Heaven to Earth, and it makes the gospel look as otherworldly and supernatural as it is.
Forgiveness is constructed in the DNA of the persecuted. One Egyptian pastor this spring delivered a sermon titled, “A Message to Those Who Kill Us.” In it he quoted Jesus, declaring the fact that the church would refuse to hate the terrorists, but would instead forgive them, pray for them, and love them. This is one of the reasons why so many terrorists are coming to Jesus.
What is a favorite Bible passage of yours and why?
Johnnie Moore: When I was 12 years old I selected a verse as my life verse, and I write it every time I sign a copy of one of my books. The verse is 2 Corinthians 12:9 which says, “My grace is sufficient for you for my strength is made perfect in your weakness.”

Posted from: Bible Gateway.
God bless you.

Sunday, April 8, 2018

OBITUARY ANNOUNCEMENT

  When Jesus was born, Herod the king subtly sought to kill the baby, as old thrones are inclined to oppose emerging feared dominions.


   Then an angel was dispatched with a warning to Joseph the husband of Mary, “take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him” (Matthew 2:13).  Not long after that, Herod it was that got unfortunately deleted by the death he had meant to bring upon a righteous Other, and actually brought upon innocent many. Boomerang, you might say, about the end of Herod’s frustrated bid to ‘swap’ his bloody hoary scalp with that holy infant head.  May Satanic ‘exchanges’ be frustrated in your land and your life, no matter how eminent might be the Herods behind the covert ritual of a holocaustic political scheme.  Amen (2 kings 3:26-27).
      At Herod’s death, the angel returned to Joseph as promised, with the obituary announcement and an instruction to return to the same place from where the old threat had forced him to flee.   Something in that obituary announcement, however, strikes me; something at odds with the ‘facts’ on the ground.
19 But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt,
20 Saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child's life (Matthew 2:19-20).
      According to verse 19, who died was one man, Herod: “when Herod was dead….”  In verse 20, however, the angel says, “for THEY are dead which sought the young child’s life.”  What had happened, as far as Earthly news was concerned and as far as mortal eyes could see, was a singular death; but according to the Voice from Heaven, according to the heavenly news reporter of the obituary, it was actually many deaths; it was plural deaths in that singular death.  In other words, the death of one Herod was actually the strategic death of all who in the recent past had meant to use the cover of his office to “destroy” the Child; it was the death of the many other faceless murderers whom the press had never known, who had guised their private biases behind a mass infanticidal political ‘decree.’  Herod had only been the arrowhead of a death-plot larger than himself.  His death reduced that lethal arrow into a mere slender wooden stem.  In other words, sometimes, it is tactical gain when one man goes, than for an entire population to be destroyed.  That was, in fact, the high priestly wisdom of Caiaphas of old. 
“Don't you realize that it is better for you to have one man die for the people, instead of having the whole nation destroyed?” (John 11:50, Good News Translation).
      Does our good God think the same way as this high priest?  Does He consider it sometimes a strategic again to take out one, or some others, for another? Maybe the prophet Isaiah can help us here:
4 I will give up whole nations to save your life,
because you are precious to me
and because I love you and give you honor.
5 Do not be afraid — I am with you! (Isaiah 43:4-5, Good News Translation).
      To God and to the devil, some lives mean much more than the individuals, and some deaths also.  You mean much more than you may ever know, and ‘they’ also.  Only after death, sometimes, does this hidden fact become an open secret which, even then, only the few who are tuned into Radio Heaven ever get to hear. When the devil comes after you sometimes, it is not merely for your sake but especially for the sake of the many unknown others whose lives depend on your one life, no matter how battered and ‘insignificant’ that life might now seem to you.  Similarly, sometimes, God also goes after a Herod not merely for his bloody and expiring stool but also for those many faceless and evil “they” that his office personates.
      When King Saul and his crack force died in battle, that one loss became the easy sack of entire communities that, even though far from the battlefront, were no less involved in the outcome of that battle.  The one ‘sword’ that cut Saul down was the same that wiped those cities out.  The enemy never needed to fire an extra shot in those places. He simply moved in to occupy the vacated cities, Saul’s distant personal defeat being also those city-zens’ private and residential disaster.
So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armourbearer, and all his men, that same day together.
7 And when the men of Israel that were on the other side of the valley, and they that were on the other side Jordan, saw that the men of Israel fled, and that Saul and his sons were dead, they forsook the cities, and fled; and the Philistines came and dwelt in them (1 Samuel 31:6-7).
      There are lives we need to protect not simply for their sake but actually for ours.  Safely far away as we might seem from them, we stand the risk of losing even our peaceful ‘cities’ if they should lose their battle, or their life.  Also, there are battles that God makes easy for His people simply by taking out one Herod or one Goliath.  Sad as it might be, may the God who knows every evil Herod’s true capacity send an angel to announce their obituary; that they have been first ‘partaker’ of the vile cup they had wanted to serve the Innocent. The good Lord God of Host shall fight for you even as you depend on Him for safety. Amen.

God bless you.

Saturday, April 7, 2018

THE PEOPLE’S SIN - A LEADER’S SIN

   Sometimes a leader’s sin is not anything he has personally done wrong, but the people he leads; their sin becoming his sin.  Hear Moses:
Also the LORD was angry with me for your sakes, saying, Thou also shalt not go in thither (Deuteronomy 1:37).
    
  Three times in one speech in one day, Moses returns to the subject, which shows how much it pained him (Deuteronomy 3:26; 4:21).  Three times he took the matter to God, until God warned him to raise the subject no more with Him.  It was one prayer point God would not answer that great intercessor.  O, how desperately Moses would have wanted it otherwise.
But the LORD was wroth with me for your sakes, and would not hear me: and the LORD said unto me, Let it suffice thee; SPEAK NO MORE unto me of THIS MATTER (Deuteronomy 3:26).
      This means that the leader’s righteousness is not merely in keeping his personal garments clean, by committing no sin; it is also in being cautious how he leads the people, or how he lets them distort how he leads them.  It might be sufficient for them that they keep their garments clean; but for him, that’s only part of the requirements.  Hear Moses one more time and feel the pain in his voice as he returns to the matter:
21 "But the Lord was angry with me BECAUSE OF YOU. He vowed that I would not cross the Jordan River into the GOOD LAND the Lord your God is giving YOU as YOUR SPECIAL POSSESSION. 22 YOU will cross the Jordan to occupy the land, BUT I will not. Instead, I will die here on the east side of the river. 23 So be careful… (Deuteronomy 4:21-23, New Living Translation).
      This was probably why, in the Old Testament, the high priest had to present sacrifices not only for himself but also for the people on the Day of Atonement.
But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of THE PEOPLE (Hebrews 9:7).
      Dear Priest, when last did you offer a sacrifice for the errors of your people?  Don’t ignore them; those people are powerful, and sometimes they hold the swing vote as to whether or not you cross into “that good land,” after sacrificing royal privileges in Pharaoh’s palace, after decades of labouring through the dry desert. Think and meditate on this.

God bless you.