What doe it mean to believe

[Mike Mclees]

I watched a Christian film last night that I believe every free world Christion  should watch. You can find it on You Tube. the name of the film is called "Scarse" Its about Christian persecution in China. It centered on a true story of young girl who was 15 years old at the start. Her parents were Christian. The story was how she lived and servied  as a believer under communist authority. If you  are led please watch it. The girl had much unbelievable courage and faith in the Lord. How ever I warn it may bring tears in your eyes. Below I found this commentary about current Christian persecution in many countries  today. we live in a free society but that could change.  

 

Every day, 8 Christians worldwide are killed because of their faith.

Every week, 182 churches or Christian buildings are attacked.

And every month, 309 Christians are imprisoned unjustly.

So reports the 2020 World Watch List (WWL), the latest annual accounting from Open Doors of the top 50 countries where Christians are the most persecuted for their faith.

“We cannot let this stand,” said David Curry, president and CEO of Open Doors USA, during the 2020 list’s unveiling in Washington, DC, this morning. “People are speaking out and we have an obligation to hear their cry.”

The listed nations comprise 260 million Christians suffering high to severe levels of persecution, up from 245 million in last year’s list.

Where It’s Hardest to Follow Jesus:
1. North Korea
2. Afghanistan
3. Somalia
4. Libya
5. Pakistan
6. Eritrea
7. Sudan
8. Yemen
9. Iran
10. India

Another 50 million could be added from the 23 nations that fall just outside the top 50—such as Mexico, Chad, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo—for a ratio of 1 in 8 Christians worldwide facing persecution.

Last year, 40 nations scored high enough to register “very high” persecution levels. This year, it reached 45.

Open Doors has monitored Christian persecution worldwide since 1992. North Korea has ranked No. 1 since 2002, when the watch list began.

The 2020 version tracks the time period from November 1, 2018 to October 31, 2019, and is compiled from reports by Open Doors workers in more than 60 countries. The list “provides the most comprehensive grassroots data on Christian persecution,” said Curry. “But it is much more than that. It is sounding an alarm.”

Last year, CT noted “Asia Rising” as India entered the top 10 for the first time while China rose from No. 43 to No. 27.

That trend continues, as 2 in 5 Asian Christians now face high levels of persecution, up from 1 in 3 the previous reporting period. China’s crackdown on both state-sanctioned and underground churches and its growing surveillance network added 16 million to Open Doors’s tally of Christians facing persecution.

“The Chinese government is committing unparalleled human rights crimes against Christian citizens and seeking to wipe religious sentiment from its country,” stated Curry in a press release ahead of today’s event. “Yet, as the Chinese Christians who will join me will testify, the persecution Christians face—including extensive surveillance, raids on churches, and imprisonment—have not succeeded in eliminating Christianity.

“Instead, the underground Christian community has banded together and is actively working to call the world’s attention to the plight of the Chinese people. We will join them in that call.”

At the DC rollout, Curry was joined by Chinese pastor Jian Zhu. “The persecution of Christians is the worst I have seen since 1979,” he said. “Christians have a worldwide brotherhood, and the government sees this as a threat.”

“It is time for religious persecution to stop once and for all,” said Robert Destro, Assistant Secretary of State in the US State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, at today’s rollout. “But as we all know, that is a long-term proposition.”

The point of the annual WWL rankings—which have chronicled how North Korea now has competition as persecution only gets worse and worse, is to aim for more effective anger while showing persecuted believers that they are not forgotten.

This year the top 10 is relatively unchanged. After North Korea is Afghanistan (No. 2), followed by Somalia (No. 3), Libya (No. 4), Pakistan (No. 5), Eritrea (No. 6), Sudan (No. 7), Yemen (No. 8), Iran (No. 9), and India (No. 10).

Article continues below

Edited September 1, 2021 by Mike Mclees

[missmuffet]

What does it mean to believe?

1. Acknowledge God's existence.

2. Having true faith.

3. Commitment to God and giving up your old self and giving your life and everything in it to God 100%.

4. Sacrifice for God.

5. Leaving this sinful world behind. 

6. Christian discerment. 

I am sure there are many more that people can add. 

[LearningToLetGo]

Good article. One suggestion: after copy/paste, make sure to select "paste as plain-text" to eliminate the large fonts.

[Mike Mclees]

5 hours ago, missmuffet said:

What does it mean to believe?

1. Acknowledge God's existence.

2. Having true faith.

3. Commitment to God and giving up your old self and giving your life and everything in it to God 100%.

4. Sacrifice for God.

5. Leaving this sinful world behind. 

6. Christian discerment. 

I am sure there are many more that people can add. 

Thank you Missmuffet And very true. Would you go to a country now that hates Christians and would kill or torture you for living and speaking these things. The girl I mentioned in the film had to live that every day.  Talk is easy when you live in the free world and police don't break in your house and beat you with clubs because you were teaching  and giving out Bibles. 

Edited September 1, 2021 by Mike Mclees

[missmuffet]

2 hours ago, Mike Mclees said:

Thank you Missmuffet And very true. Would you go to a country now that hates Christians and would kill or torture you for living and speaking these things. The girl I mentioned in the film had to live that every day.  Talk is easy when you live in the free world and police don't break in your house and beat you with clubs because you were teaching  and giving out Bibles. 

I guess God put me where I am for a reason. 

[Waggles]

Revelation 6:

9  And when he opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of the slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: 
10  and they cried with a great voice, saying, How long, Master, the holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? 
11  And to each of them a white robe was given; and it was said to them, that they should rest yet a little time, until their fellow-bondmen also and their brethren, who are to be killed even as they, be fulfilled in number. 

[Hopefully]

To me believing means altering my reality because of the hope in that which I cannot see. 

[Alive]

Acts 3:11 (NAS20S)   While he was clinging to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them at the   portico named Solomon’s, completely astonished. ¹² But when Peter saw this, he replied to the people, “Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this, or why are you staring at us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made him walk? ¹³ “ The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His   servant Jesus, the one whom you handed over and disowned in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release Him. ¹⁴ “But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, ¹⁵ but put to death the   Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses. ¹⁶ “And on the basis of faith in His name, it is the name of Jesus which has strengthened this man whom you see and know; and the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect health in the presence of you all.

Acts 3:17 (NAS20S)   “And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your rulers also did. ¹⁸ “But the things which God previously announced by the mouths of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has fulfilled in this way. ¹⁹ “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; ²⁰ and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, ²¹ whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things, about which God spoke by the mouths of His holy prophets from ancient times. ²² “Moses said, ‘ THE LORD GOD WILL RAISE UP FOR YOU A PROPHET LIKE ME FROM YOUR COUNTRYMEN; TO HIM YOU SHALL LISTEN regarding everything He says to you. ²³ ‘ And it shall be that every soul that does not listen to that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.’ ²⁴ “And likewise, all the prophets who have spoken from Samuel and his successors onward, have also announced these days. ²⁵ “It is you who are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God ordained with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘ AND IN YOUR SEED ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH SHALL BE BLESSED.’ ²⁶ “God raised up His Servant for you first, and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways.”

[Mike Mclees]

9 minutes ago, Alive said:

Acts 3:11 (NAS20S)   While he was clinging to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them at the   portico named Solomon’s, completely astonished. ¹² But when Peter saw this, he replied to the people, “Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this, or why are you staring at us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made him walk? ¹³ “ The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His   servant Jesus, the one whom you handed over and disowned in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release Him. ¹⁴ “But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, ¹⁵ but put to death the   Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses. ¹⁶ “And on the basis of faith in His name, it is the name of Jesus which has strengthened this man whom you see and know; and the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect health in the presence of you all.

Acts 3:17 (NAS20S)   “And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your rulers also did. ¹⁸ “But the things which God previously announced by the mouths of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has fulfilled in this way. ¹⁹ “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; ²⁰ and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, ²¹ whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things, about which God spoke by the mouths of His holy prophets from ancient times. ²² “Moses said, ‘ THE LORD GOD WILL RAISE UP FOR YOU A PROPHET LIKE ME FROM YOUR COUNTRYMEN; TO HIM YOU SHALL LISTEN regarding everything He says to you. ²³ ‘ And it shall be that every soul that does not listen to that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.’ ²⁴ “And likewise, all the prophets who have spoken from Samuel and his successors onward, have also announced these days. ²⁵ “It is you who are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God ordained with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘ AND IN YOUR SEED ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH SHALL BE BLESSED.’ ²⁶ “God raised up His Servant for you first, and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways.”

It would take godly decrement to hear a true prophet today .

[Mike Mclees]

I posted about the girl in China because I got a picture of things to come. We should be prepared for things going on right now may change our world. We are free today but we may not be tomorrow. Our freedoms are going to be taken from us. Believe me I know and all of us should know. We believe in capitalism but that will change soon. Certain elite parties in governments. They say things in ways we do not understand. The word socialisms wound not be received well in our country so they say  things like capitalist state. We need to hear what the UN talks of. Big corporations, the super wealthy and government are talking of a new kind of Government   that is united. Biden should not be trusted. Without publicly speaking we are prepped for socialism. This is inevitable  New World Order is well known term now. They talk of the great reset but its all the same thing. Christian may revolt. We maybe not well liked anymore. So you see what is coming. The world is building a new platform and we can see who will stand on it.