The Blind Church

It seems to me that the church in America, for the most part, has become blind to the issue of persecuted Christians. Persecution is faced all over the world today by many who lift up the name of Jesus. Let me give you a taste of what I am saying!

* More than 43 million Christians have been killed for their faith since the crucifixion of Jesus.

* It's been estimated that more Christians have been martyred in the 20th Century than in all the prior 1,900 years combined.

* There have been more than 26 million documented cases of martyrdom in this century alone.

* More than 200 million Christians in over 60 nations face persecution each day, 60% of these are children.

* 150,000 to 165,000 are martyred each year.

Christians today are the most persecuted group in the world. Persecution is on the rise because of Communism, the expansion of Islamic and Hindu extremism, and because of the anti-Christ spirit that is prevalent throughout the world.

Of the world's over six billion people: 151 million claim to be atheists, 2 billion are Christians, 1.2 billion are Muslims, 786 million are Hindus and 362 million are Buddhists.

Literally hundreds of thousands of people today are being killed, brutalized, sold as slaves, imprisoned, tortured, threatened, discriminated against and arrested solely because they are Christians.

I think you can see the problem! Now the question is what can we do?

1. Pray- November the 9th is the prayer day for Persecuted Christians. In my prayer journal I have countries listed that I pray fof every day and Missionairies there serving. We can pray for these people. Go to http://www.persecution.org/ and get more familiar with the issue!

2. Go- Jesus told us to "go" and that's what we should do. When we read these things we should know that we have a freedom in America that's like no other. We can be a witness and the only thing we might lose is our job. Guess what if you don't witness right now you could still lose your job in this economy! This is not a guilt trip but a burden. We must take the gospel message as serious as these people do and as serious as the church in the book of Acts did!