I felt the Lord asking me a really hard question today. This was a question that made me very uncomfortable to say the least. It was one of those questions that I couldn’t answer, or at least I really didn’t want to answer. It was one of those questions that can only come from the Lord.
It seems every day I here more and more about the persecution of Christians. From what I’ve been reading Christian persecution is increasing at an ever alarming rate. Being a Christian in India, Asia, or the Middle East today means that you risk humiliation, beatings, torture, and all too often execution. Even here in America we are starting to here of Christian persecution.
Seeing all of this the Lord today asked me what I would do if I was forced to suffer persecution and/or torture for the Gospel? What would I do? Would I take and speak blessings on my captors like so many of our current day martyrs are doing? Would I persevere or would I wimp out and be a Peter? To save myself from torture would I renounce Jesus?
The Lord wasn’t kidding when he asked me this today. I felt it was one of the most serious, life defining questions that the Lord had ever asked me. The Lord was really getting to the core of my heart. God wanted to see the REAL me. God wanted to know just how much I really did love Him.
Tonight after I got my family in bed I watched a couple of web casts from Ray Comfort. I watched “Hell’s Best Kept Secret” and “True and False Conversion.” Both of these run about an hour in length but they are a must watch if evangelism means anything at all to you. You won’t be disappointed!
When I was watching “True and False Conversion” the Lord took me back to the day I got saved and the two years that followed. The day I got saved I cried like a baby! I had so much sin in my life and I was carrying so incredibly much garbage that when I got to that altar I let it all go! Man did I give it up to God! In that moment when I said “I’m yours Jesus!” I was completely transformed, made new, stripped of my worldly garments, lifted up, and given a new robe of grace to wear. I rose up, lifted my hands to Heaven and praised Jesus for what he had just done in my life!
I couldn’t hold in what had just happened to me! I had to tell the whole world what Jesus had just done for me and that’s exactly what I set out to do! It didn’t matter who it was if they would give me an ear for just a few seconds they would get the story of how Jesus saved me and set me free! I was the man on death row with no hope who all of a sudden was a free and restored man. The world was my stage and Jesus was what I was proclaiming!
The first two years or so after I got saved I preached the good news of Jesus without fear. I didn’t care if I was persecuted for Jesus. If someone sought to persecute me they found that their attempts were in vain. In fact there were those that sought to persecute me and they found that it was impossible. I was pressing on no matter what!
But what happened after those first two or three years? I guess I let life get in the way. Slowly but surely little things cropped up here and there and I slowly started sharing Jesus less and less. I finally got to the point where I went to church two or three times a week and the rest of the time was focused on survival. I was fighting to just get by.
Tonight Jesus told me enough is enough. Tonight Jesus called me back to my first love. My first love is and has always been preaching the good news of Jesus Christ! Tonight God called me to relight my fire, to start the fire anew and once again become enthralled in a burning passion and desire to tell the whole world about Jesus and what He has done for me and what He can do for them.
It’s time to quit sitting on my butt and get up and get going for Jesus! I’ve really felt in my heart that this talk I received from the Lord tonight has been some time in the making. I also know that I’m not the only one receiving this call! If God has given you this call too I’d love to hear from you!
Be Blessed!
BIG SCOTT
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