TUESDAY December 12th
Acts 9:16
‘For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.’
I have returned back to Acts 9 and to verse 16 again, for as we look at the life and ministry of Paul, it was told to him as we saw from verse 15 that he was to take the gospel or to carry the name of Jesus before Gentiles, Kings and the children of Israel.
In our previous devotion we saw how Paul talked about partnership with others in the gospel, in this devotion I want us to see what is another partnership, which to be honest about it none of us would wish to choose, but Paul knew from the moment he had been saved that he would be faced with this partnership and it is this, ‘suffering for the sake of the gospel’. In verse 15 ‘Carry my name’ and in verse 16 ‘Suffer for the sake of my name’. The gospel and suffering for it.
We cannot get away from the fact that throughout the history of the church, men and women have known what it is to suffer for the gospel. We recall that it was while Stephen the first Christian martyr was being stoned to death that we met Paul as Saul.
The Romans had a constant hatred towards Christian carrying out such horrendous acts of cruelty to them, and in each succeeding generation there have been those who have been taken hold of by Satan himself to relentlessly seek to destroy the people of God, whether the Jewish nation or the Church that Jesus is building. But thank God for the promise of Jesus that the gates of hell will not prevail.
But despite knowing he was going to suffer for the gospel, Paul immediately began to carry the name or to take the name of Jesus to wherever the Holy Spirit led him to go. We will consider this further, but for now, let’s call to mind the suffering that many of our brothers and sisters in Christ are undergoing at this present time around the various nations of the world.
I found these alarming facts on the internet, every two hours a Christian is killed for following Jesus, 1 in 8 Christians worldwide experience high levels of persecution, the World Watch list 2023 lists from 1 -10 the worse countries where Christians suffer. 1) Norh Korea 2) Somalia 3) Yemen 4) Eritrea 5) Libya 6) Nigeria 7) Pakistan 8) Iran 9) Afghanistan 10) Sudan you can go to opendoors.org for more information, but as well as that you can go to Emmanuel Pentecostal Church, Gateshead on a Wednesday evening at 7:00pm for the hour of prayer, where especially on the first Wednesday of the month we pray for the persecuted church.
An important question, how would we fare if persecution were to come to our nation in the same way has it has in other countries around the world? I cannot give an answer for anyone, but what I can say is how important it is that that the church in the UK prays fervently for our nation that we will be able to continue to keep the freedoms that we presently enjoy to practice our faith publicly, we should give more consideration to the importance of being together in fellowship and of the need for corporate prayer, for, our nation needs it, our government need and we the church need it.
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