Skip to main content

Prayer for the Persecuted Church

Father God,

I lift to you those brothers and sisters living in countries where loving You is a crime. I pray that You would give them strength and conviction and to keep their final destination in the forefront of their minds. Raise up new leaders among their numbers that can share Your love with those who do not know You, and give them the mindfulness to find ways to do so in secret. Enlighten the leadership in these countries to see the truth of Your love, and help these leaders have the courage to stand against those who would terrorize the people who love You. Protect those who come to know You and are threatened by members of their own families. Give them a safe place to go, and work in the hearts of lawmakers in those countries where this atrocity is not forbidden. No one should have to be afraid of those that raised them just because of a decision to follow You. Make the light of Your love so strong in Your people that those around them can't help but be amazed and want the peace that is found only in You. Fill these believers with a love that overflows from their hearts and reaches out to those who need You the most.

Be also with those of us who live in places where we can be open about who we are in You. Open our eyes to the problems faced by our brothers and sisters overseas. Help us to love You the way martyrs throughout history have: enough to die for You rather than deny You. Be our first love, the one we would give anything for. Take our hearts, our plans, our desires and our lives and make them Yours. Help us to burn for You in a way that Your presence in our lives is undeniable. Help us to bring others to Your love, so that they may grow into the leaders we need to help spread Your truth to the whole world. Restore in us the faith, power and conviction we had when we first found You. Make us shine with the light of Your love so that others will desire to know what we know. Give us a ready answer whenever we are asked about the hope that is within us. Last but not least, help us to NEVER take our freedom for granted. We know that not everyone is fortunate enough to have that freedom, and we need to see it as the wonderful blessing that it is.

In Your Son's name we pray,
Amen

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Outside Looking In

(My post Life>Death  chronicles my struggle with suicidal depression. This story is based on the vision God used to save my life.) It all started after the knife sliced through my wrist. As I watched my life drain away, I felt a sense of peace. I knew my pain was finally over. Soft arms lifted me up and carried me off to Heaven. There I watched as my parents found my body. They started to cry, which I had expected. What I hadn't expected was what they were saying. "What did we do wrong?" they cried out. "Nothing!" I screamed. "You did nothing wrong!" But they couldn't hear me. What had I done? As my friends and other family members found out about my death, they said the same thing, and I continued screaming that it wasn't their fault. Their reactions caused me to be in agony, which struck me as strange. If indeed I was in Heaven, wasn't I supposed to be pain free? That is what I had always been taught. Then came my funeral. It...
2 comments
Read more

My Fun October

This last month has been a blast, and I wanted to share the highlights with you, my loyal readers. So here, in chronological order, are the events that made my October a great one. Kansas Authors' Club Convention:  This took place the first weekend of the month right here in my hometown. Even though I have been a member for a few years, this was the first convention I had been to, mainly because I didn't want to pay for the convention and a hotel room. I am so glad I went, and I enjoyed it so much that I'll probably keep going every year even if it involves travel and a hotel. I learned so much from the sessions I went to about honing my craft that I came home eager to write more often. I also met some awesome fellow writers including the Poet Laureate Emeritus of Kansas. He was very fun to talk to and loves to eat bread, a fact I later wrote a poem about. One of the sessions I participated in was a poetry and music event. Each poet read their piece once, then two jaz...
Post a Comment
Read more

Just a Girl

"And he came and said to her 'Greetings, favored one. The Lord is with you.'" - Luke 1:28 Last week we celebrated the birth of our Savior, and people around the world read about the miracle of His conception, the trip to Bethlehem, the shepherds, the angels, and the wise men. There are many characters in this wonderful story of our faith, but I want to focus on one in particular: His mother Mary. Of all of them, she was the first to know about what was about to take place, and the first to have to accept her part in the story. Most of the images depicting Mary show a lady in her mid-twenties at least, the age many would associate with someone engaged to be married. However, this is likely not the case. In that time, it was common for a girl to become betrothed when she was still in her early teens, often to a man who was much older and had already established a career. Jewish betrothal was as binding as a marriage, with the only difference being that the man had n...
Post a Comment
Read more