Monday, 26 October 2009 18:26
The Persecuted
They Are Part of Us
If you have ever traveled thousands of miles from your home and had the opportunity to spend time with Christians that were raised in a completely different culture than that your own, something 
might have struck you as it did me when I had the occasion to do the same.
From my experience I learned that we are the same throughout the earth concerning our love of Christ and the unity in the Holy Spirit. It throughly amazed me. We may speak different languages, we may worship in different ways, we may have different cultural norms, yet we are woven together by the bond of the one we serve. When we are in Christ we are in each other as well. There is no escaping that fact.
Jn 14:20
20 When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
NLT
In the above passage the Lord speaks of the union that we all share do to the fact of the resurrection of Christ and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. How astounding is that?
Yet this also speaks to the fact that when one of us suffers we all suffer also. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentile's, in explanation to the Corinthian believers of how the body of Christ is inexplicably connected by the work of the Spirit, spoke to this issue.
1 Co 12:25-26
25 The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don't, 26 the parts we see and the parts we don't. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.
THE MESSAGE
We cannot separate ourselves from this issue
Clearly we can see that we cannot separate ourselves from this issue even if presently we live in a society that does not experience this type of assault against our faith. Every one of us is dependent on each other in the body of Christ and if one of us hurts or sustains abuse on account of our belief, then all other parts of the body are "involved in the hurt".
Carl Moeller, President/CEO of Open Doors USA made the following statement
(From his article, Stories of Hope from the Persecuted Church on ChristianPost.com)
"An estimated 200 million Christians around the world suffer interrogation, arrest and even death for their faith in Christ, with another 200 to 400 million facing discrimination and alienation."
We must not sit idly and do nothing. Please visit the following links for more information on how you can help.
Bishop G
Frontline Fellowship - Compass Direct - Worldnet Daily - Voice of the Martyrs
Persecution.org - Christian Post - Open Doors