The story comes from Cano, Peru, not many years ago: "Terrorists had killed their pastor the night before. His body was on the floor with some candles around it. Terrorists had also burned the church and seventeen houses--all belonging to Christians. The people had no more church, no more pastor, no more houses. Yet, they continued to gather together fearlessly, about thirty of them. They stood in the muddy street to have their song service." ("Jesus Freaks", 1999, Albury
publishing)
This Sunday, we will worship at the pool with out a second thought. Every Sunday, we gather for worship at Living Hope with no fear of being punished for our faith. However, every day brothers and sisters in Christ around the world will not only suffer but die simply because they follow Jesus. Their stories do not receive mainstream media coverage. Their deaths do not invoke world-wide outrage. No army is sent to ensure their religious freedom or their right to live. And yet...they worship, they believe, they love, and they live for Jesus even if it means they will die for Jesus.
Isn't it interesting that those who risk everything to worship in secret find it easier to be free in Christ than so many of us who live in a free nation? How could a people be asked to give their all--their lives--for their faith and find it easier to give it up for Christ and we who have it all find it so hard to give up anything for Christ?
Many people have died for us to have our religious freedom. Perhaps the best way we can celebrate the freedom they won and others now preserve this Independence Day is for we Followers of Jesus to ask, "I live in a free nation, so what is it going to take for me to have half the courage and commitment of those don't live in a free nation?"
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