Standing Up to Persecution

Proverbs 26:2

Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, an undeserved curse does not come to rest.

I don't know how many of you are faced with this on a regular basis, but it does happen.  When people get very angry at God and His servants, they can go on extended tangents of cursing.  They curse God, His people (Christians), and anything else that they associate with God.  Thankfully, God gives us this promise, which is illustrated through the prophet Balaam:

Numbers 23:8

How can I curse those whom God has not cursed?  How can I denounce those whom the LORD has not denounced?

Deuteronomy 23:5

However, the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam but turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD your God loves you.

Thankfully, as Christians, when someone curses us because of their hatred for the Lord we can rest assured that it will not come to rest on us.  God loves us.  He is constantly looking out for us, and when need be, He fights for us.  When someone curses us because of God we need to guard against being drawn into an argument.  We simply need to rebuke that person.  

If he repents, forgive him and share the message of God's saving gospel with him.

If he persists, rebuke him again and then turn him over to he Lord.  

If someone is cursing you because of your faith, they are really not cursing you.  They are trying to curse God.  That is why it is not our place to punish that person.  God is the judge of all.

Romans 12:14,17-19

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.

Do not repay anyone evil for evil.  Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody.  If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.  Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is Mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.

Finally, I will leave you with the words of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount, where He assures us that we are blessed if we are insulted and persecuted because of Him.

Matthew 5:10-12

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.  Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
(note:  Jesus segues from this into being the "salt and light" of the world.)

May the Lord give you the strength and the wisdom to stand, in faith, in the face of all persecutions!

God bless

Jason Fredrick

Jesus Died for Sinners

Proverbs 18:2

A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions.

Have you ever had times in your life when you were this fool?  I know I have been.  As I look back, this would be the perfect description of me for the first 32 years of my life.  I was prideful, arrogant, argumentative, selfish, and self-centered.  All of that stemmed from one underlying cause:  low self-esteem.  Even though I have been a Christian all of my life, I was baptized when I was just a few weeks old, for much of my life I didn't really understand what that meant:  to be a Christian.

Even during my periods of greatest rebellion against God I never lost my belief in Jesus.  I have always known and believed in Him as my Savior.  Yet, from ages 15-32 (especially through all of my 20's) my life did not reflect my faith.  I was a fool.  I was not reading.  I was not learning.  I was not seeking after understanding.  I was not in God's Word.  The one thing that I did do right during these years is I kept going to church.  I never left the church.  I may not have attended every week, but I was still going regularly during the year.  That may have been the only aspect of my life that showed there was still faith left in my heart, and that truly was by God's grace alone.

In 2007 I had my turning point.  A friend of mine that I played softball with introduced me to a network marketing company that had a world class leadership development program.  That company became LIFE Leadership in 2011.  That leadership development program is what God used to bring me back to the path that He had planned for me all along.  I fell in love with self-directed learning.  I have been a voracious student ever since.  I was no longer the fool; I found great pleasure in intentionally growing in understanding and wisdom.  I have actually developed a certain level of humility and no longer delight in airing my own opinions.  I have learned how to respectfully communicate with people (most of the time).  

At the beginning of this article I wrote that my real problem was low self-esteem.  That's not entirely true.  Low self-esteem is actually a side effect of the real problem:  not understanding what it means to be a baptized child of Christ.  This is what it means to be a child of Christ:

Romans 8:37-39

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

1 John 3:1-3

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be children of God!  And that is what we are!  The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.  Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known.  But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.  Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

This is the gift that Jesus offers to everyone!  Even the worst of sinners.

1 Timothy 1:15

Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance:  Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners- of whom I am the worst.

God bless

Jason Fredrick

Humility Serves, Pride Destroys

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Proverbs 11:2

When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.

This Proverb seems so self-evident that I am having a tough time coming up with a way of expounding on it.  So what I have done is look up the verses that are referenced with it. (Concordia Reference Bible, NIV 1984)

Proverbs 16:18

Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.

Proverbs 18:12

Before his downfall a man's heart is proud, but humility comes before honor.

Proverbs 29:23

A man's pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor.

Let's start with pride since all of these verses start with the warning.  All of these verses warn against the results of pride, but maybe it will be helpful to look at what pride really is.

Pride is idolatry.  Pride is all about self:  Look how awesome I am.  Don't worry God, I've got this one.  Pride has a peculiar way of making us blind and deaf.

We can't see what's right in front us, even though it's obvious to everyone else.  No matter how much people try to warn us, or give us good advice we're way too smart for that.  They're not nearly as smart as we are.

If you have ever tried to teach or coach a prideful person you know how frustrating this can be.  Pride makes people unteachable.  What can you possibly teach the person who already "knows it all".  Ironically, the person who is suffering from pride never seems to have much in his life to be proud about.  That is Solomon's warning in the first verse above.  Despite living in disgrace brought on by pride, these people foolishly parade around like they have life all figured out.  They are blinded to the fact that they are a joke to the people around them, then ones who can clearly see their disgrace.

Pride is idolatry.  Pride honors self above God.

Psalm 81:11-12

"But My people would not listen to Me; Israel would not submit to Me.  So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices."

Then, what is humility?

Humility listens and thinks before speaking.  Humility recognizes that others, and especially God, have something of value to teach.  Humility submits to God's will.  Ironically, though not boastful and self-promoting, humility brings honor where pride and arrogance bring disgrace and destruction.

Notice also that humility precedes honor and wisdom.  Everyone wants the honor and wisdom, but few are willing to pay the price of doing what is required to obtain it:  humbly serving others.  That's really the secret of humility:  it empowers us to serve.  It helps us forget about ourselves and serve others, however they need to be served.   If you're trying to serve people in the way that you want to, with little or no regard for what they need you are not displaying humility.  You are not actually serving those people.  You are only serving yourself.   This is really a problem when people do this with the Lord, when we try to dictate to God how we are going to serve Him.  As Christians, it is our privilege to serve God in the way that He commands us to, and calls us to.  We need to guard against the temptation to "follow our own devices".

Can you imagine Jesus' life and ministry had He not humbly submitted to the Father's plan of salvation?  That wouldn't leave us in a very good place.  Our condition would be hopeless.  Thankfully, Jesus humbled Himself to become a human being and pay the price for the sins of all mankind.  He loves us so much that He willing died to redeem us, the crown jewel of His creation, from sin, death and the power of hell.  We should all be humbled when we think about how much Jesus loves us and what He has done for us!

John 3:16

For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

God bless

Jason Fredrick

The Wisdom of Fathers

Proverbs 4:2

I (a father, see v.1) give you sound learning, so do not forsake my teaching.

As a father, I can relate to this advice.  This is the advice I give to my own son.  The problem is that this advice is exactly what I arrogantly rejected for much of my youth.  I insisted on making every mistake myself.  It is only as I have matured, finally...more or less, that I appreciate the wisdom of this Proverb.

My father tried to share the wisdom he had learned through his own mistakes and doing dumb stuff.  Unfortunately, I was way too smart to listen to any of that, I knew I was way smarter than that.  So I went off and made the same mistakes and did the same dumb stuff.  My dumb stuff didn't look exactly the same, it rarely does; but it could have been avoided had I been humble enough to learn from someone who was born thirty years before I was, and who loved me and wanted to see me succeed in life.

This is an interesting analogy to how we all act towards our Heavenly Father.  

He has given all of us sound learning in His Word, the Bible.  He has even commanded us not to forsake His teaching.  But what do we do?

We, at times, totally disregard His sound learning.  Instead we do our own thing.  After all we're smart enough.  We got this.  Don't you know who I am?   This is too often the arrogant, sinful attitude that we repay our loving Father with.  We foolishly underestimate Satan's power of deception:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made.  He said to the woman, "Did God really say...?"  (Genesis 3:1)

As Christians, this is the choice we are faced with every day:  obey God or listen to Satan.

(This is only true for Christians.  Non-Christians do not have this choice.  They cannot obey God.  Every inclination of their thoughts is only evil all the time. [Genesis 6:5]  and  

...everything that does not come from faith is sin. [Romans 14:23]   Anyone who does not believe in Jesus Christ as the risen Lord and Savior, is a child of Satan.  They are spiritually dead and cannot choose to do anything that pleases God.

...the sinful mind is hostile towards God.  It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.  Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. [Romans 8:7-8]

If this little sidebar describes you, don't worry.  There is hope.  Let me finish my thought for the Christians and then we'll talk about the hope that there is to lead you out of the darkness and into the light.)

Like Eve, if we choose to please ourselves or chase after our own selfish desires, we have chosen to listen to Satan.  We have doubted God's love and faithfulness.  

How can we know if we are listening to God, or to Satan?

Easy.  Read, study and immerse yourself in God's Word.  It is in the Bible where our Heavenly Father gives us His sound learning.  If what we want to do goes against what Scripture teaches, then we have our answer.  The answer is always in God's Word.  Whether we want to hear His answer or not, it's always there.  We have to submit ourselves to the Lord and His Word by reading it and listening to it.  Reading the Bible has little value if you're not going to do what God says.  

Don't worry unbelievers, I didn't forget about you.  Here's the hope (it's the same as that of believers):

"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. (John 3:16-17)

Yes, we all do dumb stuff.  Yes, we all rebel and sin against God.  But through the blood of Jesus we are forgiven.  Jesus Christ paid the price, in full, for all of the sins of all people.  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith... (Ephesians 2:8)  

God bless

Jason Fredrick