When Christians are Suffering for Their Faith

Another holocaust is taking place and it is Christians (among others) who are dying. If you would like a more detailed account of what it is like to be a Christian in Afghanistan right now you may read it here. Don’t look away!  It would be disobedience to the direct command of God to do so.

Remember the prisoners as if chained with them—those who are mistreated—since you yourselves are in the body also (Hebrews 13:3).

This verse is overwhelming to meditate upon given the current state of events. For the last week, its words have constantly occupied my mind. This type of suffering is not new, it has been happening in Africa and other places for decades. The Afghanistan holocaust catches our attention because of the suddenness of the circumstances and because as US citizens our own country owns no small amount of blame for allowing it to happen.

The early church must have felt helpless when Paul, Peter, or others were in prison or dying for their faith at the hands of the Romans.

We now know how it feels.

We know it is going on right now and there is not one thing we can do about it except pray. Prayer ought to be our first resort, not our last, and when we pray we must understand this is the most powerful thing we can do.

I will remember them.

We are Americans. We like to laugh. We like to think about happy things. Well, there is a time to rejoice—and there is a time to weep. Even Jesus wept at the death of His friend Lazarus and the suffering his dear family had to endure.

Hebrews says to remember them. For me, I could not forget them if I wanted to. I will not put them out of my mind. I will not distract myself when I think of them. There is a time to rejoice and a time to weep. This is the time to weep. As hard as it is, our God commands me to THINK about what they are going through right now, to remember them, and to lift them up in prayer. To go a day or an hour without praying for them seems incomprehensible.  Shame on us if we do not lift them up in prayer from our pulpits and in our prayer meetings.

If there was ever a time to fast and pray, this would be it.

I must identify with them.

Yes, I understand that more people than just true believers are suffering, but make no mistake, true believers are suffering. The command here is to remember them as though I am in prison with them. To put it in 21st-century lingo, I am commanded to identify with them—to see them as me and me as them.

I realized this as my heart is burdened for these dear people. Their culture, language, dress, skin color—almost every human characteristic—is different from mine, yet I identify with them as my brothers and sisters in Christ. My heart is knit with these dear believers.  While I am white, male, American, English speaking, none of these really matter to me as much as my identity in Christ as a child of God.

I gain perspective from them.

They are being asked to revoke their identity as believers or die on the spot. Many of them are choosing death over disowning their Savior. If I imagine myself with them in their trial, I gain a renewed perspective on life. The petty dramas of my life fall away. A financial setback, an offense against another–all seem so insignificant in the light of what these believers are enduring.

Their plight does not make my trivialities trivial. It just reminds me that they actually are and always have been trivial. I just trump them up bigger than they are out of my own selfishness and exaggerated sense of self-worth.

May God grant them His grace in this unimaginable trial. May God place His loving and protecting Hand around them. May God not only give them protection but His power for victory. For those who have already or will soon enter heaven as martyrs, may their deaths testify of His greatness, and may their reward be eternally great.

May God help us all.