Thoughts on 1 Peter - Day 17

                                                1 Peter 4:1-6

Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin. ² As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. ³ For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. ⁴ They are surprised that you do not join them in their reckless, wild living, and they heap abuse on you. ⁵ But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. ⁶ For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to human standards in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.

    Just looked up some stats on Christian persecution. One Christian is martyred every 5 minutes. There were more Christians killed in the 20th and 21st century then the previous 19 combined. There are 200 million followers of Christ facing persecution in 105 countries making Christianity the most persecuted religion in the world. Just 2 weeks ago a North Korean pastor, Han Chung Ryeol was brutally murdered. He had led numerous North Koreans to the Lord. Did you hear about that? Me neither;  I just checked out The Voice of the Martyrs website. That is happening all over the world and we consider ourselves persecuted when people exclude us or make fun of us because of our faith.  Actually Peter is going to address both of these in this passage and you might be surprised by his conclusions.

    Obviously the church is undergoing persecution at the time of Peter's letter. People were being put to death for following Christ. What does Peter say? Basically he says it happened to Jesus, too so we can expect it. Like Jesus, who went to eternal glory when He was put to death, we too, when we die as believers, whether martyred or not, get to spend eternity in Heaven. If that isn't great enough,  Peter kind of longingly sighs and says, oh to be done with this sinful messed up world and my desire to sin. Do you ever feel that way? We should. Could it be that we aren't bothered by sin as much as we should be? Could it be we don't stand against sin like we should?  I've got to say I am a work in progress on this topic. Part of me wants to echo "Christians should be known for what they stand for not what they stand against" which if I've heard once I've heard a thousand times. That sounds great and safe but it's interesting that I didn't hear that quote until the last 10 years. Those kinds of things make we wonder. And then you have someone like Franklin Graham, who I deeply respect as I am currently at one of his mission hospitals in Honduras, going around the USA and calling a sin a sin. I truly believe that if we do that we are going to be persecuted.

     Besides being martyred,  I do believe Peter addresses those minor things like having abuse heaped on you for saying,  "sorry, but as a Christian I don't do that". Peter says,  you know, that's okay because all those things you used to be tempted by like drinking, sex, popularity, orgies - um, not a problem anymore. You can move on to new temptations to deal with because no one is going to invite you to those parties anymore. Not to say you shouldn't go to those and be a witness when invited,  just don't expect too many more invitations.

    Let's not run from persecution nor do we need to go out looking for it because it will come for us, and Peter says, that's not a bad thing.

     Lord, give me wisdom to know how to deal with this are in my life.  Give me strength to stand for You and not cave when persecution comes.  Amen