REMEMBER TODAY THOSE WHO ARE BOUND

Dear Believer,

If you are in your own house and peacefully reading this, you are like millions of other Believers, and that is great.

Do you realize, though, that yet millions of Believers like you are being hounded by terrorists and religious fanatics who want them dead just because they believe as you do?

As I write this, Believers in parts of Nigeria are hiding in the forests from murderous religious expansionists. Communities are being taken over and the native people killed or driven out. Many children have become fatherless and widows and widowers being made everyday.

These are our brethren being killed. These are our churches being burned and our communities of Believers taken over.

Those pastors being beheaded committed only the ‘crime’ of believing in Jesus, which you are also ‘guilty’ of. Those who want their head want yours too, and mine. 

Let not a Christian gathering be complete until we’ve prayed for them. Let not our charity works be complete until we have given to them. Let every family pray for them during the devotions. Let us seek them out.

This may seem as a far away echo to some Believers, but so did it seem at a time to some people whose lives have been lost and their land taken over now. Evil is never satisfied. Once it takes the North, the conquest of the South begins.

Believer, do not dwell in false security. Those who hate your brethren do not love you. If we don’t identify with our suffering brethren, we’d be like the right hand that didn’t care when the left hand was being cut off. It will soon realize that half it’s strength is being taken away.

See what the Word says about this:

Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body. Hebrews 13:3.

To remember them that are in bonds (and being persecuted) is not to perfunctorily mention them from time to time. We must be involved. YOU must be involved.
We must fellowship with their suffering ‘as being bound with them.’

As Paul the apostle neared the end of his life, he was held bound in a dinghy Roman prison. Surprisingly, the churches he had founded, the friends he had made, the people he had trained all forgot him. They got busy doing all sorts of things. They were enjoying the letters he wrote but had forgotten that he was languishing in a prison.

He wrote to Timothy:

This you know, that all who are in Asia turned away from me, of whom are Phygelus and Hermogenes. May the Lord grant mercy to the house of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain, but when he was in Rome, he sought me diligently and found me 18 (the Lord grant to him to find the Lord’s mercy in that day); and in how many things he served at Ephesus, you know very well. 2 Timothy 15-18.

The Believers of Asia Minor didn’t deny Paul or reject his message, they simply “turned away” from him because he was in prison and not available anymore. They moved on to the next rave in town. Maybe another eloquent preacher had arisen and he was the one to be ‘sponsored’ now. Paul even mentioned certain names because he was particularly surprised they could ignore him just like that. Out of sight, out of mind!

But one man dutifully and diligently sought him out and ‘refreshed’ him. The man was Onesiphorus. That is the attitude that Believers must have.

We must pray for our suffering and persecuted brethren. Let not a Christian gathering be complete until we’ve prayed for them. Let not our charity works be complete until we have given to them. Let every family pray for them during the devotions. Let us seek them out.

If you are having it relatively easy, your Lord demands that you identify with your brethren who are having it tough, for you are members of the same body.

Start today to do something about this.
Have a great day.

Your friend,
Deon.