Your family loves you dearly, both your immediate and church family, you enjoy your employment field, your finances are in order, your health is good and everything in life is as a bright sunshiny day with nary a cloud in sight. You are more than likely not thinking about the Rapture or the day of your death very often.
There are many ways my friends to be conformed to the world, and one of the most devious is to find contentment here.
“Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” (2nd Tim. 3:12)
I fear that many who say they serve the Lord Jesus Christ see minor inconveniences as persecution for His Holy name, and in their mind view true persecution as torture and imprisonment unto death, and a horrific death at that. Speaking His name in public, to friends, family and strangers, offers persecution, and that is why so few do so today.
The loss of something held dear to us is persecution for Him, yet for many, simply being mocked, scorned verbally, or laughed at, is considered by them persecutions. If that was the worst of it, I would accept it gladly every day.
“Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.” (Heb. 12:4)
I am still pondering that verse, and it has occurred to me this truth, the blood is our life force, so to speak. Let enough of the blood out of your body, and you will die. Persecutions are trials, serious trials, that can, if the assurance of our faith is not resting upon the Rock of our salvation, draw our life force, again, so to speak, from us.
If you can understand that poor analogy, then you can begin to understand why so many fear to speak openly of Him whom they say they serve in public places, online, to strangers, for fear itself becomes the persecution.
I need to repeat that, for I believe it is vitally important. If fear is believed by you to be a form of persecution, then you do not know the meaning of the word.
All the prophets in the days of Jeremiah lied, they spoke falsely, except Jeremiah. He knew persecution.
“Howbeit I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, saying, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate.” (Jer. 44:4)
Persecutions for the name of the Lord can only arrive if you open your mouth and start speaking of Him, and they always mean the loss of something we hold dear. So, you have a choice to make, you can either conform to the world, or you can be persecuted for His name’s sake.
You cannot have both.
There seems to be a great misconception among many who like to wear the title “Christian” today, and it is this, when the sky is blue and things are going well, the Almighty is blessing you, and when they are not, then there is something amiss, something wrong, some sin in your life.
“And they that heard it said, Who then can be saved?” (Luke 18:26)
Speaking boldly of Christ to the glory of God will bring persecutions, the sun will darken with storm clouds, the loss of things you hold dear will begin to occur. You will be persecuted. What then, my friends, in regard to this letter to you, reveals a person who truly has been born again?
It should be easy to see. No one you meet will know that you have been saved by grace through faith unless you open your mouth and start speaking about Him whom you serve, and the moment you begin to do so in earnest, solely for His glory, is the moment for the opportunity for persecutions to begin.
Fear of doing so is not persecution. That is called embarrassment.
“For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father’s, and of the holy angels.” (Luke 9:26)
