I desire a church with passion.
I desire to be a woman who is passionate about Christ.
I have been insanely blessed, along with other Christians in this country, to be able to freely go to a church service, bible study, or even to a bookstore and purchase a bible, without great persecution.
In other countries, not only is it illegal to do these very things that I do on a regular basis, the punishment in these countries is death. Men are being killed, women and children are being raped and murdered for their faith. One statistic said that at least 55,000 Christians are killed each year for religious reasons. Christians in India, Indonesia and Pakistan run the highest risk of losing their lives.
It just makes me wonder, "what has my faith cost me?"
Yeah, maybe at times I have been made fun of or belittled for my faith, but
people are being killed.
I feel that we as Christian people should recognize this and view are faith in such a way that we see the preciousness within it.
Instead of taking these blessings for granted and being stagnant in our faith, these blessings should be the cause of passion in our personal walk with Christ. For our brothers and sisters in other countries, for the widows, the orphans, the persecuted and the abandoned for their faith; for these we should chase after the wondrous God who has blessed us so much. Remember them in your walk.
I believe that our lack of passion in this country comes from fear. Fear of what others will think of us. How dare we fear something so minuscule when our brothers and sisters are living out their faith in places where they could be killed for it.
Think about the apostles. They followed Jesus freely and they died some pretty gruesome deaths. Mark was dragged behind a horse in Egypt,and Paul was imprisoned and tortured and others were killed in different ways. It is important for us to see the struggles of the early church and be grateful that we do not have to face this today. Also, we should live without fear. For our struggles are no where near this bad, and the Lord did not makes us a people of fear.
2 Timothy 1:7-10 says;
"For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and self control. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling,
not because of our words but because of his purpose and grace,
which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested
through the appearing of our savior Christ Jesus,
who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."
not because of our words but because of his purpose and grace,
which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested
through the appearing of our savior Christ Jesus,
who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."
These verses ignite a passion in me to not be stagnant in my walk. Lately I have been inspired to be more passionate in my worship of the Lord, and in my prayers to him.
