I recently received in the mail a package that contain a book called "Tortured for Christ" by Richard Wurmbrand, a magazine "The voice of the martyr" and a map of the world with highlighted areas one dark blue for restricted nations and the other green for hostile nations... I figure I would check the magazine and see what it was all about... I ended up reading the whole thing within 20 minutes. When I finish reading I must say that I was fully convicted by what I had read! It had the story of a young guy from Nigeria named Godwin Vincent who lost his left hand to Muslim extremist who attacked him while he was on his way to the grocery store, the reason for the attack Godwin is a Christian believer!
Godwin Vincent |
Wife of beaten Indian pastor |
In Vietnam an evangelist baptizes people in secret
In Pakistan another shares the gospel even though his life has been threaten many times...
In Indonesia, many have been killed and others are force to move to "christian refuge camps" all because of their believes!!! In China, Iran and Afghanistan there is many who have been put in prison for preaching the gospel or for giving out Bibles or tracks... some will never get out of that prison cell, their sentence is life in prison.
Through all this you can see that not one of them is willing to stop the evangelizing of the area they live in... Do you know why??? They love Christ and want to share His love and His salvation with others!
To me really the saddest part of all is that probably most of them do not even know truth but are still willing to lay down their lives for this mighty cause.
I feel ashamed to say that I (knowing truth) have never put even 1/2 as much effort into evangelizing my area as these poor people! It makes me so sad to even think about it... Our church has such a great calling and God has been dealing with all of us but still some wont listen! 8,( We are full of excuses about why we can't give of out time... We have a revelation of who Jesus really is but yet most of the time we choose to do nothing about it... We live in America the "land of the free" where we don't have to worry about persecution... but still we have a million excuses why we can't go do outreach today... Well Saturday is my only day off, I have to do laundry, I have to wash the cars, give the house a good cleaning, I have to clean the garage, do the lawn, clean the refrigerator, go grocery shopping, go to the mall for that one day sale, etc.... you can fill in the blank! I know what God has been dealing with me about, do you know what God wants you to do???God didn't call us just to sit and enjoy but we are also called to share the good news with others. Jesus didn't die for just a few but He died for all of us! I think its about time to get serious about this revival God promise to Ontario! We need to start putting the work of God first in our lives, people are hungry for what we have... lets be that bridge that God uses to bring them home.
Lets pray that God would enbolden us. We have the power of the Holy Ghost and with God all things are possible. He will help us and guide us to the lost and hungry! We need to reach them all... as many as we can before Jesus returns for His own! We need to reach for the Old and the young, the gay and the straight the rich and the poor, the "saved" and the lost... all have an opportunity to make it to heaven but we need to help them along! 8)
It is our calling that God gave to us... are you ready to respond to your calling, even if you might lose all???
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's the same shall save it. Mark 8:35
and remember to pray for the persecuted believers of these world!