Awakening

“Our culture understands heroism. But we don’t understand martyrs.” Taken from the book titled Jesus Freaks by dc Talk and The Voice of the Martyrs

When my two girls were in their middle school years somehow the idea came into my head that I wanted them to read the book ‘Jesus Freaks’. I wanted them to have a sense of what cost there can be in following Christ and how even unto death, even horrific death, staying with Christ is the most important thing in life.

Recently, my sister shared a video with me about the church in Iran. (It’s called ‘Sheep among Wolves’.) I had no idea what is going on there these days. I’m not a big news watcher. It just seems like continuous fighting and problems in the middle east, but the video I watched and the information I’ve read since then has given me cause to get excited and has also challenged me to rise to greater commitment to Jesus myself, here in America!

“Persecution threatened to wipe out Iran’s tiny church. Instead, the church in Iran has become the fastest growing in the world and it is influencing the region for Christ.” You won’t see that on the news!

“Despite continued hostility from the late 1970’s until now, Iranians have become the Muslim people most open to the gospel in the Middle East.”

“How did this happen? First, violence in the name of Islam has caused widespread disillusionment with the regime and led many Iranians to question their beliefs. Second, many Iranian Christians have continued to boldly and faithfully tell others about Christ, in the face of persecution. As a result, more Iranians have become Christians in the last 20 years than in the previous 13 centuries put together since Islam came to Iran! In 1979, there were an estimated 500 Christians from a Muslim background in Iran. Today, there are hundreds of thousands-some say more than 1 million.”

And get this… “the second fastest growing church today is in Afghanistan and Afghans are being reached in part by Iranians, since their languages are similar.”

So how does this apply to 1 Corinthians 15? Paul is talking to the church about the resurrection. He makes it clear that if the resurrection isn’t true than there is no point to even living out a Christian life. If it all ends at the cemetery...what’s the point?! He talks about the suffering he and others have gone through for the faith. Friends, there have been so many martyrs over the years for Jesus. People who could’ve simply denied the faith and lived, but chose not to, and died horrific deaths. Why would people do this if not for the hope of the resurrection?

We can either live for this world or for the next. We can’t do both. In America, it’s easy to forget this reality as we live for the most part in comfort. People who are being persecuted have no confusion on the issue. They’ve banked everything on the next. 

For the most part...the Iranian church of today is being led by women! Women who often have been raped and have seen and experienced horrific things and great loss. There is no central church leadership/denomination or even any church buildings to go to. It’s an underground thing, based solely on people sharing their testimony of what Jesus has done in their life. The women are gentle, filled with love and are experiencing healing through the power of forgiveness. They are risking everything, every day and have decided to be literally living sacrifices if necessary. Wow!

Christians from the Middle East see the United States as being under Satan’s lullaby. Look around and you’ll see it. Where is the urgency? Where is the power of Jesus on display? It’s worth pondering and examining our lives to see...is the power of Jesus, the hope of resurrection, changing anything in my day to day life? If not...why? It might be time to reexamine our world view. We need an awakening.

(The information that I have quoted is from the article “The Story of Iran’s Church in Two Sentences” by Mark Howard)

-Ruth Spencer