Sari @sarikorpi@dingdash.com

@Knittinggrace Thanks for sharing this! What a good preach about our Lord and King Jesus! 🥰

@Lindseyay I love this song! I've been listening to it by Charity Gayle, but this video was also touching, thanks for sharing!

@Keeper Yes. And I'm convinced these methods are still in use and persecuted Christians in different countries suffer from it every day. We in West have used to have a liberty of speech and thinking, but we see these things has started to change in a short time.

Christ endured the cross "for the joy set before him". (Hebr. 12:2)

So I'm making the conclusion that a deep understanding of what this joy REALLY means might help to endure persecution, even torturing, as Christ did.

Help me Lord to understand deeply the joy I have in You and in what's still in front of me! But also to grasp that if I fear You above all, then I don't need to fear anything else in this world. Amen.

A beautiful thing that happened when Zhang didn't give up his faith was that a muslim got saved! Zhang was constantly being tortured and it was so horrible that he just prayed and asked God to take his life. But then a muslim, who also was imprisoned, had watched how Zhang was being tortured and because he saw the peace and the power that surrounded Zhang through the torturing, he got convinced that Zhangs God is the real God! And so Zhang was able to lead him to Christ. Praise God!

@Keeper Yes exactly! How to stand up with the torture?

I've been thinking if it would help if I would REALLY understand more about what eternal hell really means. To be thrown into the lake of fire and suffer there for forever and ever, without anything of God in that place! And to understand that that's where I'll end up if I deny Christ! Because in that book, to prove the police that they really wanted to deny Christ, they had to give names of other Christians. That's horrible!

I've been reading a great book called "I stand with Christ" by Zhang Rongliang and Eugene Bach. We bought it this summer in a small village in the middle of the forest, where a youth camp was held.

The most shocking thing for me in the book was how persecution led true believers to deny their faith in Christ and to uncover the names of their brothers and sisters. Zhang talks in the book about how only the true believers, who weren't able to keep their faith in secret (because Christ's light shined through them) were the onlyone's who were put in prison. The lukewarms never even got that far. But out of these 30 believers only 4 came out of prison without having denied Christ! The persecution was so heavy. I'm thinking, how was it possible for these 4 to remain in their faith when the others didn't?? Is there something we as believers can and should do today so that when persecution comes, we would be those who stands with Christ? 🙏

When the police tried to get Zhang to deny Christ, he explains in the book that:

"What they had not understood, was that to give up and deny Christ would be much worse than any earthly prison or imaginable pain. What they didn't know was that the time of my suffering is limited, but the honour to be with my Lord is eternal."
(my own translation).

I think what kept Zhang from denying Christ was both the fear of the Lord and the fact that Christ was his everything, he had lost his life to live fully for God. And he knew this life is not everything, he knew he has the eternity with God in front of him. ❤

And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows. Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God: But he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God.

Luk. 12: 4-9

@LukoseGeorge At first I thought, this sounds good! But when taking a moment to really think this through, I realized I can agree to the two parts: "is it true" and "is it necessary", but not to "is it kind". Jesus spoke sometimes quite harshly to the Pharisees about their hypocrasy, same did John the Baptist. Not a kindly thing to do, but certainly something that was both necessary and the truth.

@Kruselady However, it's important to understand that to walk in the Spirit and to put away the deeds of the flesh, does not happen in our own strenght and by our own ability! Everything comes from God, even the will to do what is right. We have a choice to take, but that choice is about whether we want to submit ourselves under God and His Word, or not. Whether we want to live according to our own will, or His. Whether we daily want to take up our cross and follow Him, or not. And whether we seek His Kingdom first, or the desires of our selfish nature. And it's God that fully does the work in us through His Spirit, by ourselves we can do or accomplish nothing!

@Kruselady Yes, this is the truth about us in Christ! 🙌 When we were born again out of Spirit and water (Joh. 2:5) we became new Creations in Him, the old is gone and the new has come! (2. Kor. 5:17). The new man in Christ is free of the desires of the flesh (Gal. 5:24) so we need to start walking by the Spirit in order to be in that new. (Gal. 5.16-17, 5:25) But we have still the ability to live according to the old man, our flesh, if we want. (Gal. 3:3, 1. Kor. 3:1-3, Jaak. 4:1-3). So it becomes clear, that to walk by the Spirit is a choice, not something that happens automatically. We need to kill the deeds of the flesh and put them away (Col. 3: 5-10, Room. 8:12-13, Ef. 4:22-24). Before we were born again we did not have the ability to do this choice because we lived in darkness, but now when we live in the light we need to walk in it too. (Ef. 5:8-15).

God bless you!

Adding to my previous text:

"Open the door for Satan", or more correctly said evil spirits.

Also, if Christian's starts to do things that are a sin (for example participate in yoga, have sex outside marriage) they will open the door for Satan to come into their lives just the same way as happens with non-christians.

Satan uses man's "flesh", the sinful nature, also in Christians if they're not walking by the Spirit. I believe Peter had fallen into pride and so he dared to take the authority to rebuke the Son of God.