Steadfast, Immovable, Abounding

This is the eighth and final installment in my series of posts on the beatitudes.

“‘Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.’”

Matthew 5:10-11

Five thousand eight hundred ninety-eight.

It’s about the number of hours from now until the end of October.

It’s a little more than the number of car accidents every two weeks in Tennessee.

It’s just under the number of miles the average adult walks in five years.

It’s also the number of Christians who were martyred for their faith in 2022 alone.

We all know that many of our brothers and sisters in Christ suffer intense persecution in diverse areas of the world. But how often to do we stop to think of and pray for them? And when we do, what do we pray for? Their safety? The destruction of their enemies? An escape to the safe haven of nations friendly toward Christianity? In Ephesians 6:18-20, Paul writes (while imprisoned), “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.” Paul doesn’t instruct them to pray for his release, or relief from persecution. Instead, he has a seemingly mindboggling request: that he would open his mouth to speak the gospel even more boldly. Here is a man who has suffered more for the sake of Christ than any of us likely ever will, yet is willing to experience more persecution if it means the gospel will be proclaimed. That is the kind of devotion to which Jesus calls all of his followers—including us.

We in America don’t face true persecution. We as Christians have liberties only dreamed of in hostile countries. Unless God calls us to the mission field, we will likely never have to choose between Jesus and immediate death. Yet even if we will never be tested to such a great extent, God still calls us to have the same endurance and passion for Him. We might not face persecution, but we will face opposition. Jesus assures us that His followers will be hated by the world. He says in John 15:20-21, “‘If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me.’” We can expect the world to hate us because it hated Jesus as well.

There’s so many examples of people in the Bible who were true to Christ and faced death rather than denial. But what about the people who let fear get the better of them and “caved”? After Jesus’ arrest, Peter tells three different people that he doesn’t follow Jesus and doesn’t even know who He is. The third time, we are told, “Then he began to curse and swear, ‘I do not know the man!’ And immediately a rooster crowed. And Peter remembered the word which Jesus had said, ‘Before a rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.’ And he went out and wept bitterly” (Matthew 26:74-75). Can you even imagine the shame and self-reproach Peter must have suffered at that moment? He was the disciple who had proclaimed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Yet when things went differently than he expected and it was no longer comfortable to associate with Jesus, he denied even knowing Him.

The thing is, no one was necessarily threatening Peter’s life. All they said was that he had been with Jesus. But at that moment, Peter didn’t even want his name to be connected with Jesus. When people start to question who you belong to, and perhaps even look down on you for your faith, what is your response? Do you start to backtrack your biblical stance, and dissociate yourself from the God who saved you? Do you become angry, forgetting that all who follow Jesus will be opposed? James tells us to “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance” (James 1:2-3). This echoes what Jesus said in Matthew 5: we are to rejoice when we face opposition. Every time someone insults or ridicules us we must choose between Jesus and our pride. And if we choose rightly, we will gain endurance and our reward in heaven will be great. We must learn to speak as Paul did in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10: “Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

The worst the world can do is take the fleeting life we have on earth. God already has my soul; “what can man do to me?” (Psalm 118:6).