Links for today’s readings:
Read: Genesis 17 Listen: (4:02), Read: John 16 Listen: (4:14)
Scripture Focus: John 16.2
2 The time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God.
From John: We return to this rewritten post from 2019 to remind us that as Christianity grows overseas, persecution does as well. In the linked Christianity Today article from 2024, we read that in the previous year, 5,000 Christians were killed for their faith, 4,000 were abducted, and more than 295,000 Christians were forcibly displaced from their homes because of their faith. Let us pray for the persecuted church without claiming their persecution as our own.
Reflection: Praying for the Persecuted
By John Tillman
It is troubling how American media downplays or ignores persecution of Christians overseas.
Perhaps they think Christians have it pretty good in America, so the suffering of Christians overseas lacks relevance. It is good for Christians to share the stories of modern Christian martyrs, however we must be careful not to claim for ourselves their mantle of suffering.
Our readers outside the United States are approximately twenty percent of our email subscribers and a much higher percentage of our web traffic and social media reach. However, the vast majority of our readers are in “safe” countries for Christians. Our difficulties are not comparable to those suffering true persecution.
Wherever we live, we must also not claim persecution when experiencing discomfort or pushback from culture. We must not get our feelings hurt when governments don’t rubber stamp our religious convictions as law, or when prominent voices call us names, call out hypocrisy, or attack us intellectually.
This doesn’t mean we abandon our convictions. Too many have done so. This doesn’t mean we abandon winsome engagement with culture. We must speak the truth in love and speak truth to power.
As we pray today, using Christ’s words to his disciples before his crucifixion, may we keep in mind and hold up before God’s throne in prayer members of our community and of God’s church in countries where they are threatened by the state, by religious militias, and by other dangerous forces.
Praying for the Persecuted
Lord of the suffering and the outcast, we pray the words of your Son regarding the suffering of our brothers and sisters…
“I have told you so that you will not fall away. The time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God.
I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them.
Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.
Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. Your joy will be complete.”
Turn our brothers and sisters’ grief to joy. And turn our mourning into action on their behalf.
Divine Hours Prayer: The Cry of the Church
O God, come to my assistance! O Lord, make haste to help me!
– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.
Read more: Prayer for the Church from Indonesia :: Worldwide Prayer
We confess that in the comfort of your blessings and abundance…we too easily forget others who pray for daily bread…peace in their land…freedom to pursue life…
Read more: What Is Persecution? :: Throwback Thursday
It is a sign of great uncharitableness and cruelty, when men can find in their hearts to persecute others for little things
