Encourage one another

History indicates that the opposition to true believers brings savage persecutions, the weeding out of those who are fakers, and the purifying by the faithful sampling the sufferings of Christ.

Believers of this time will not escape just as the sufferings of those in far lands is but a picture of what will come to both Europe and the Americas.

What can pastors do?

Teach the people to implant God’s Word and to communicate with each other using His Word.

Demonstrate and model abiding in Him, earnest prayer, and searching the Scriptures.

What else would you place as important for the believer in time of distress and persecution?

 

The Lord has placed us in the world, but not of the world.

There is most certainly a disconnect for the true believer, who, as we all must, walk among those who despise the light, push back against the light, and even plot to destroy the light. For the true believer is a lamp lit by the Spirit of God and set by God before the world as His ambassador.

Although the world would hold the believer to a standard of perfection, and mock any failure by great and fervent proclaimations that mark that person as a charlatan, a liar, and not to be trusted, the true believer knows in the heart the truth.

The true is at best we must proclaim that which Paul so eloquently and others have agreed is the condition of their own life.

"It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all." (1 Tim.)
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Recognizing that we are, as all are, the chief of sinners yet miraculously redeemed by the grace of God, such allows us not to condemn the World, for even Christ was not given that mission (for the unbeliever is condemned already). Rather, as ambassadors, our mission is to tell of the redemption and reconciliation of the Savior.

Always it is that the believer is not to be in the world, have fellowship of the worldly, and are to be distinct in all our ways from that which the world places as noble. We are to be wholly Holy.

Do not allow the worldly and their influences to distort the calling God has placed before you.

For ultimately, the single driving reason behind every decision is to follow the will of God as revealed to each believer through His Word.