Enduring Witnessing
"We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we
bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it;" - 1
Corinthians 4:12
In the early 1990's, Bishop Haik Hovsepian-Mehr was an
Armenian pastor in Tehran, Iran. He was an evangelical who
openly shared his faith and spoke out for religious freedom.
He did not believe in succumbing to government pressure and
chose instead to "tell the world" about the plight of
Iranian Christians. He said: "If we go to jail or die for
our faith, we want the whole Christian world to know what is
happening to their brothers and sisters."
In December 1993, Bishop Haik was the chairman of Iran's
Protestant Council and he courageously sent out an open
letter to Western media publicizing fellow pastor Mehdi
Dibaj's imprisonment. Then on January 19, 1994, Bishop Haik
disappeared from the streets of Tehran. The authorities
reported his death to his family on January 30. But his and
other Iranian Christian martyrs deaths have not been in
vain. Michael G. Maudlin, author of "Have You Seen Jesus
Lately?", reports that: "In 1977 there were only 2,700
evangelicals in Iran out of a population of 45 million. Of
these only 300 were former Muslims. Today, there are close
to 55 thousand believers, of whom 27 thousand are from
Muslim backgrounds."
Throughout the world today, there are millions of Christians
enduring persecution. Today in prayer, remember the
Christians in Iran and pray for an end to their persecution
and that they may prove faithful to the end.
"Christ kept himself from suffering till his hour had come,
but when it did come he met it as a free man, seized it, and
mastered it. We are not Christ, but if we want to be
Christians, we must have some share in Christ's
large-heartedness by acting with responsibility and in
freedom when the hour of danger comes." - Dietrich
Bonhoeffer
God's Word: "Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant
is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they
will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they
will obey yours also." - John 15:20
By Peter Kennedy, Copyright 2003, Devotional E-Mail
DEVOTIONS IN 1 CORINTHIANS
pkennedy@devotional.com