My family and I attended a
wonderful worship service last night. Afterwards as I was snuggled into bed,
drifting off to sleep I started to think (not always a great thing to do when
you’re trying to sleep).
I wondered what my life would
be like without a relationship with God. It wasn’t a pretty picture. I tried
to remember back to my days before accepting Christ and some of the emptiness
I felt, but didn’t recognize. I didn’t like the thought.
I wondered what would happen
if all the Sunday (or any other day) worship services were cancelled.
I wondered what would happen
if there were no more Christian TV or radio programs.
I wondered what would happen
if Bibles were virtually non-existent and other Christian reading material
was impossible to get.
I wondered what would happen
if there were no more church buildings to go to and if assembling as
Christians could get people killed.
I wondered what would happen
if I had to choose between renouncing my faith and prison, torture or death.
I wondered what would happen
if your family threw you out for accepting Christ.
I realized that those
scenarios are reality for much, perhaps even most of the Christian church
even today. There is more persecution of Christians today than at any time in
history. More Christians have been killed in the last 100 years than in the
first 1900 after Christ’s death.
Yet God carries them through.
He gives them hope and a reason to believe. Their faith is stronger, more
passionate, deeper and more real than the faith of most people I know,
because it has to be.
They know first hand what the
Bible speaks of
