Are You a Child of God?

• This week's Extreme Devotion from Voice of the Martyrs.
  Alone in his underground cell, the pastor complained to God, “You say you give the sun and the rain to the good and the bad. So which is it? Am I good or bad?”
  God said this to his heart: “You are something else entirely—a child of God. A child of God does not wait for sun or rain. He should be a giver of sun. You are the light in a dark world, so give light. Instead of complaining about what you don’t have, why don’t you give? There are so many souls around you in the other cells.”
  Pastor Wurmbrand prayed, “How am I supposed to bring someone to salvation when I sit alone in a cell?”
  “Think it through for yourself.”
  Richard Wurmbrand then had an idea and tapped on the walls. Sure enough he heard return taps. He then proceeded to teach the prisoners on each side Morse code. Eventually they were able to communicate effectively, and Richard began preaching the gospel. Others in turn did the same to those next to their cells.
  His new attitude allowed God to turn a seemingly hopeless situation into an effective method of spreading the gospel throughout the prison.
  Years later, Richard heard someone testify that in a Romanian prison, a prisoner adjacent to his cell had won him to Christ by tapping on the wall.
  Facing facts can be a difficult task. When Pastor Wurmbrand evaluated his situation, the facts did not look good. However, his sufferings actually led him to a new discovery. He realized that a person’s attitude is more important than facts. Armed with an attitude of renewed hope, he began to reevaluate the facts. He could not speak. Yet he could tap in Morse code. He could even share the gospel—his true love. When we find our circumstances stacked against us, we must pay attention to our attitudes. We should be prepared for suffering, as was Christ. Yet we must determine that it will not defeat us. We will survive it. Do you pay more attention to facts? Or are you a person of faith?

What does the persecuted church have to teach us?

I have been reading a book by Ronald Boyd-MacMillan - Faith that Endures.  It is a great book. One of the stories he tells is of taking a Chinese pastor to a Christian book store in LA.  He thought the Chinese pastor would be impressed with all the Bibles and Christian books and material, instead he said, it must be very hard to be a Christian here.  Ronald said, why, the Chinese pastor said, because how are you going to keep your faith simple with all this available.
I think there is a lot of truth to this.  There is so many self help books that distract people from The Book that God has provided to us for our life's journey.  Don't get me wrong, I have read a lot of books and I believe that there is a lot to learn from other's experiences and testimonies, but it should never distract us from our main guide the Bible.

Starting out

Well, here goes.  I became involved with the Persecuted Church through VOM Canada several years ago.  I was down at Missions Fest and they gave me a book, Tortured for Christ.  It really touched my life and brought a new awareness of what it means to follow Jesus.

Hopefully I will be able to keep at least a weekly blog going.  See what happens.