IDOP Theme Devotional
Persecuted but not Abandoned (2 Corinthians 4:9)
By Elizabeth Kendal, Religious liberty analyst and advocate
Just like the Apostle Paul, modern disciples of Christ are routinely hard pressed, perplexed, persecuted and struck down. But they are not crushed, despairing, abandoned or destroyed because God faithfully sustains and empowers His servants (2 Corinthians 4:7-11) through His ever-present Holy Spirit (John 14:16-20, 23, 25,26). To Him be all the glory!
Persecuted believers commonly have wonderful testimonies of how God ministered to and sustained them; how He empowered them and enabled them to endure; how He poured His love into their hearts and His words onto their lips enabling them to reflect divine grace despite terrible injustice and cruelty.
When we pray for Christians who are suffering crippling discrimination, suffocating repression, imprisonment and increasingly violent persecution, we can pray that they will be encouraged, sustained and sanctified as they experience the reality of a loving faithful God who never abandons them and is with them in all their struggles (Matthew 28:20; Psalm 23:4).
REFLECTION
When we suffer bullying, marginalization, discrimination or persecution on account of our faith in Jesus, how do we compare to the example of the Apostle Paul?
Do we strive with great effort to rise above or defeat persecution in our own strength?
Do we take defensive measures to avoid persecution at any costs?
Do we embrace victimhood and give up in despair?
OR do we, as Paul did, acknowledge that we are as weak and fragile as a jar of clay (2 Corinthians 4:7) and then look to HIM for divine strength (Isaiah 40:31) trusting in His promise that His grace is sufficient (2 Corinthians 12:9). Will we say as Paul did, "When I am weak, then I am strong," for Christ's power rests on me (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)?
When our own Christian brethren are suffering on account of discrimination and persecution, how do we compare to the faithfulness of God?
Do we abandon the persecuted for political or economic gain?
Do we shut our eyes and ears to avoid exposure to a burden we have no wish to share?
Do we cover up the reality that Christianity involves cross-bearing (Luke 14:27) because it frightens us and offends others?
Do we abandon Christ's beaten, hungry, homeless, impoverished, imprisoned and tortured body on a daily basis (Matthew 25:44-45)?
OR do we, out of love for one another (John 13:34,35 and 15:12,17), "carry each other's burdens" (Galatians 6:2)? Do we help those who struggle by praying for them (Romans 15:30; 2 Corinthians 1:10-11; 10:3-4)? Do we remember those in prison and those being mistreated as if they were "I" (Hebrews 13:3)? Will we promise never to abandon our persecuted brethren for any reason?
God never abandons the persecuted.
May they never again be abandoned by us.
