Awakening to struggle

Series: Why Should I Encounter Persecuted Christians?

I need to encounter persecuted Christians because they help me remember that I am always in a fight.

I'm often asked: "What would you say was the main difference between a persecuted Christian and a Western Christian?"
My answer has not changed in 20 years: In the Persecuted Church, Christians realize they are in trouble and go to God about it. In the Western Church, Christians forget they are in trouble, or in a fight, and even if they do remember, they never manage to find the time to go to God about it.
Persecuted Christians know they are in a fight.
Every day they struggle. Not being conscious of a daily struggle may be a sure sign that one is losing the battle of life.
The Psalmist looked at the rich elite of Israel and said: "They have no struggles" (Psalm 73:4 NIV). They should have struggles if they wish to please God.
But so many Christians in the world today seem surprised at the language of struggle.
What struggles do the persecuted awaken us to?
First, there is the struggle we are always in. Everyone who visits persecuted communities comes away with a renewed appreciation of the spiritual battle we are always engaged in.
We have to battle our reluctant hearts which are mired in sin and do not want to face God. Why must we always force ourselves to pray?
We have to battle a blinding world, which dazzles and distracts, trying to disorientate us from our true nature and purpose.
We also have to battle a lying adversary, who is forever feeding us lies like "you are no good" and "God doesn't care about you."
The great Victorian preacher, Charles Spurgeon, once said: "The devil does not waste his time flogging a dead horse."
He meant that if you are not conscious of fighting a daily battle against one's flesh, the world and the devil, then that means only one thing - you have already lost the battle! Time to rejoin it!

Cultural idols
Second, there is the struggle we must awaken to. One persecuted Christian in the Middle East said: "When you become a real Christian, you get awakened to the fact that 'the whole world lies in the hands of the evil one,' and this reflects in your own culture."
She added: "What your culture worships, you have to struggle against."
We have to face up to the same question: What is our culture worshipping?
Is it, as Francis Schaeffer once said, "the god of personal peace and affluence" where we don't mind what goes on in the world so long as our peace and prosperity are not affected?
One prayer group in South Central Los Angeles became convicted that a whole generation of their youth was worshipping guns and that mainstream society - through Hollywood filmmaking - was promoting this.
They stood against it, and the house they met in was sprayed with bullets in a drive-by shooting - the very night they were praying!
Another church group in Sheffield, England, became convicted that, as the persecuted were helpless to share their struggles with the world, the most "speechless" group in their own society was unborn children.
No one can hear their cries from the womb, and yet millions of their voices have been silenced.
This struggle is going on all the time in our own societies. It's the same battle.

Creating conflict
Finally there is the struggle we must create. Brother Andrew tells the story of meeting Pastor Haik of Iran, who said to him in 1993: "Andrew, when they kill me, it will be for speaking, not for being silent."
Haik was killed in 1994. If he had stayed silent about the treatment of his imprisoned Christian friend, Mehdi Dibaj, Haik would still be alive. But he chose to enter, even create, the conflict.
The fact is we can usually avoid struggle if we want. Each of us has to make a choice to speak up, defy the powers-that-be, and bring a struggle into being.
Otherwise it is a rollover victory for the enemy.
Persecuted Christians are always in a fight. They struggle all the time, against their own sins, against idolatries in their own societies, and against the orchestration of the evil one who is out to take our worship away from God.
Yet these struggles should mark our own lives and churches as surely as the devil does not work exclusively in China or Colombia.
The Apostle Paul had to upbraid the Corinthian believers because while they were rich, wise and honoured, he was poor, beaten and persecuted (1 Corinthians 4:8-13).
Such peace and honour is not meant for this world, but the next. This world is the place of struggle. What are your struggles? What are mine?
The persecuted force us to ask.
Everyone ought to have some!
Other articles in this series:

• Achievement or Sacrifice?
• Stop Complaining
• Our Debt to Spiritual Ancestors
• Hope for Hard Times
• The Battle for Religious Freedom Never Ends
• Seeing the Bible through Persecuted Eyes
• Death Loses its Sting
• The Power of Song
• Simple Faith
• Key Ingredients in Hospitality
• The Beauty of Mystery
• Obstacles to Instruments
• God is Not Safe
• Deliverance Comes Through Endurance
• Imperfect People Do God's Will