As If YOU Were Suffering

You are jolted awake by the muffled scream of your daughter in the other room. As soon as you leave your bed, you hear the cracking sound of an automatic rifle and more screams coming from the village you live in.

Your heart begins to accelerate and the persecution you have been praying for deliverance from begins. You are literally walking through the worst nightmare imaginable.

As you race towards your daughter, a blunt object smashes against your face.

As you begin to regain consciousness, you realize that you have been unresponsive for hours on end. It is a struggle as you try to open your eyes because your face is mutilated and crusted with dry blood.

Suddenly, you remember your family and force yourself to get up to check on your wife, daughter, and son.

They are nowhere to be found. The only signs of them are blood splattered mattresses.

You panic.

In a state of shock, you sprint out of your house while broken shards of glass penetrate through the bottom of your feet. Your worst fears are being realized before your eyes. All around you, dead bodies of both men and women are littered throughout the streets. Friends, relatives, young, and old are lying lifeless around you with various parts of their bodies mutilated.

You begin to feel numb.

As your vision regains focus through the tears filling your eyes, you see the decapitated heads of young boys on poles in the middle of your village.

There’s your son.

His head decapitated and impaled by a stick in the middle of a group of boys who faced the same fate. His glass-like eyes pierce through your entire body. You fall to the ground and cry out to God with groaning; unable to even form words out of extreme distress and shock.

Remember the prisoners, as though you were in prison with them, and the mistreated, as though you yourselves were suffering bodily. – Hebrews 13:3

How would you react if you were in this situation? My guess is you would literally scream out to God with your entire being. We are called to remember our brothers and sisters in the faith around the world AS IF WE WERE SUFFERING WITH THEM!

When was the last time you seriously spent time praying for them? Not just a few emotionless words but actually crying out to God for those who are being brutally murdered, tortured, and humiliated for their faith in Jesus?

Please join with me in praying for our brothers and sisters around the world who are facing extreme persecution. Remember them as if you yourselves were suffering bodily. Cry out to God for deliverance on behalf of the Christians and other persecuted groups around the world.

Pray, Share, and Spread the word. Let’s join together. Prayer is far more powerful than any of us realize.