How to be Persecuted as a Christian in America
How to be persecuted as a Christian in America?
If you have followed along with me for even just a short bit, you know I face quite a bit of online pushback. This is to be expected when posting/ standing for biblical truth. Why though? Does it have to happen?
John 18:36, “Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”
God’s ways are contrary to the world’s.
So we cannot expect those who aren’t in the kingdom of God to understand the ways of God.
Because….
“But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.” 1 Corinthians 2:14
And….
“The way of the wicked is like darkness;
They do not know over what they stumble.” Proverbs 4:19
And….
“They do not know, nor do they understand, for He has smeared over their eyes so that they cannot see and their hearts so that they cannot comprehend.” Isaiah 44:18
And…
“Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.” Matthew 13:13
I could go on, but I’ll stop there.
The biggest thing to realize is that people who are living in the dark, cannot see the ways of light.
Their hearts are hard.
Their eyes are cloudy.
They do not have the capacity at that time to understand the ways of God because they are still enslaved to their flesh and sin.
Their perspective is on what their flesh wants and desires, not what is honoring to God.
So when you come against that, you are actually coming against evil. I know that sounds extreme, but we cannot belittle Satan anymore. There IS spiritual warfare. It goes far beyond a lil red devil on your shoulder telling you to do wrong.
1 John 3:8 says, “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.”
When the son of man came, He didn’t come to make peace and comfort people. Matthew 10:34, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Jesus came to fulfill the law and be the final sacrifice for His people. So you can bet your bottom that Jesus had pushback.
Why? Because He went against people’s flesh and selfish nature. You and I are going against people’s flesh and selfish nature. So we WILL receive pushback. This is a promise.
2 Timothy 3:12
John 15:18
Matthew 5:10
1 Peter 4:12-14
So how do we handle it? How do not let it get to us? How do we stand firm even though words hurt?
We respond how Jesus did: We pray for them. Luke 23:34. Something I have come to realize is that when you pray for someone, you can’t be bitter towards them. Because you are getting the Lord’s heart for them.
“Well they said this really mean thing to me”
Well I won’t diminish that, but they crucified Jesus and He still prayed for them. It’s because His love was bigger than His pride. Granted, Jesus was perfect in all His ways so he had no pride. But we do, so how do we train ourselves for our natural response to be love?
Something I have seen in my own life is that the more I realize MY lack and MY absolute desperation for Jesus, I have a lot more grace for others. When I know how truly unworthy and messed up I am, I realize I am no different than the lost person persecuting me. I have done that. I have persecuted others. Whether it was online or not. I have had bad thoughts toward someone. I have wished bad things upon them. I have ______. The list goes on.
But get this, “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
So if God can love us at our absolute worst and choose to die on the cross for us, we can love someone because that love and grace has freely been offered to us. While not free, because it came with a cost, it cost us nothing other than receiving His good grace.
So we give that to others.
“As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace:” 1 Peter 4:10
We were given grace so we can give it.
We were given love so we can further love others.
We were forgiven so that we can forgive others.
All to point back to the glory of our God! None of us are deserving, yet we are graciously given it for the purpose of showing it to others.
So tangible steps when someone comes at you with hate:
Don’t reply….Pray.
Pray for their heart to come to know Him, Pray for their eyes to see truth, Pray for God to give them understanding.
Pray that the truth you have spoken has been planted as a seed and that God would continue to grow that seed into understanding the gospel.
Pray that your heart and your response would be glorifying to God.
Pray that you would have compassion like Jesus did because they are His children.
Pray that God would give you wisdom on how to respond.
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