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HappyAll heaven is applauding when I get in trouble for speaking the truth of the government of God. God is God and in control.

I am in good company when I am put down for making his rule known. God is light and shines truth on us all. I can’t hide His light. I can’t pretend He isn’t in control.

How often, though, am I considering what others will think if I speak the truth in love? God has a goal for us to speak the truth about Him and His government. He is in a good mood and wants us to let others know about it.

It may make them uncomfortable. That is OK.

May I speak the truth and seek our Father’s approval and not others.

“You are happy (aka blessed) when they insult you and persecute you and falsely say every kind of evil against you because of me. Be glad and rejoice, because your reward is great in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” | Christian Standard Bible. (2020). (Mt 5:11–12). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.

There is no doubt that persecution is a stark reality of living for a disciple of Jesus. For a disciple of Jesus, persecution is to be expected. The apostle Paul warned that “everyone who wants to live a godly life in the Messiah Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12).

Not may be. Will be! That means me! Why do the internet trolls bother me? Are they not expected? They are mild compared what is coming.

The religious leaders and elites will come after us. They killed Jesus. They may kill us. Am I prepared? Secularism is the new religion. Atheism is a religion. At a minimum they are coming after us. They are serious. Just ask some regular folks who lost their businesses when they dared to stand up for traditional marriage.

What is dangerous is that the government is helping the secularists and atheists. It’s not just China or North Korea we need to worry about.

“The church that the sexual revolution has built is thriving, all right, and those outside need to know what’s in there. But its pews are packed with casualties—every one of them a convert waiting to happen, for the Church that does keep its promises”. Source: The Zealous Faith of Secularism | Mary Eberstadt

We all seem to lament the demise of Christianity in our country. We must recognize the deadly danger of Secular Religion’s dogma. The casualties are strewn in the streets and we are stepping over the bodies. It is a call to arms to save the lost souls. Jesus demands we take action. Will we? Will we do something today?

“Secularist progressivism is less a political movement than a church, and the so-called culture war has not been conducted by people of religious faith and people of no faith. It is instead a contest of competing faiths. One believes in the books of the Bible, and the other in the evolving, figurative book of orthodoxy about the sexual revolution.” Source: The Zealous Faith of Secularism | Mary Eberstadt

Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Matthew 5:10–12

Jesus said that, if they persecuted Him, they will also persecute His followers (John 15:20). Jesus made it clear that those of the world will hate a disciple of Jesus because the world hates the Messiah.

If I were like the world (or a Secularist) — vain, earthly, sensual, and given to pleasure, wealth, and ambition — the world would not oppose me. But a disciple of Jesus does not belong to the world, which is why the world engages in a disciple’s persecution (see John 15:18–19).

A disciple of Jesus is influenced by different principles from those of the world. We are motivated by the love of God and holiness, while the world is driven by the love of sin. It is our very separation from the world that arouses the world’s animosity (1 Peter 4:3–4).

Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. John 15:20

Persecution — Religious authorities and elites are an agency of it: We must not forget that it was the religious elites and leaders who convicted Jesus and sent Him to His death on the cross. Many times they had sought to kill him. They finally succeeded. Are they coming after me? Are they coming after you?

  • 1 Thessalonians 2:13–16  — For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe. For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in the Messiah Jesus that are in Judea, for you also endured the same sufferings at the hands of your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews, who both killed the Master Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out. They are not pleasing to God, but hostile to all men, hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved; with the result that they always fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them to the utmost.
  • Jeremiah 26:8  — When Jeremiah finished speaking all that the Master had commanded him to speak to all the people, the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, saying, “You must die!
  • Amos 7:12–13  — Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Go, you seer, flee away to the land of Judah and there eat bread and there do your prophesying! “But no longer prophesy at Bethel, for it is a sanctuary of the king and a royal residence.”
  • Matthew 23:34–37  — “Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. “Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.
  • Acts 4:27–29  — “For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur. “And now, Master, take note of their threats, and grant that Your bond-servants may speak Your word with all confidence.”
  • Acts 5:17–18  — But the high priest rose up, along with all his associates (that is the sect of the Sadducees), and they were filled with jealousy. They laid hands on the apostles and put them in a public jail.
  • Acts 22:4  — “I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons.”