Remember those in Prison
What if you were refused employment just because you were a follower of Jesus? What if local authorities in your community forced your church to close? What if your daughter was snatched off the street and forced to marry a man of another faith? What if your pastor was arrested, tried, and imprisoned for the simple reason that he taught people the Bible? What if your neighbor or your government killed some of your friends whose only offense was that they refused to denounce Jesus?
Of the 2.6 billion Christians in the world, 1 in 7 faces some kind of persecution.
Unless you subscribe to ministry publications like Voice of the Martyrs or check websites like Open Doors, you may not know that in parts of the world, such things are everyday possiblities for some Christians. In fact, of the 2.6 billion Christians in the world, 1 in 7 faces some kind of persecution. Don’t expect to see such things show up in your news feeds or the New York Times.
Like every other year, on Nov. 2 of this year, Christians everywhere observed a Sunday to pray for global brothers and sisters who are persecuted. Like the over 3000 believers who were killed this year in Nigeria. True, believers were again slaughtered in many places such as North Korea, Syria, India, Iran, and the Sudan. But Nigeria bears the distinction of being home to where more Christians were murdered this year than in all of the other offending countries combined. Why?
Following a Fox News report on the Nigeria situation, earlier this week President Trump announced he intends to have the US military draw up plans to possibly intervene in Nigeria to stop the killing of Christians. Most analysts doubt such an invasion will actually take place. And murdered Christians is nothing new. And it’s unlikely any military intervention by outside players will end it. But God says prayer could. You faithfully answer our prayers with awesome deeds, O God our savior. (Psalm 65:5)
Part of the Nigerian scene involves Fulani (Muslim) herdsmen who assault Christian farmers, either because they want to cross their pasture lands—or just want to take it for themselves. But when attackers shout “Allahu Akbar!” as they cut down those in their way, it is clearly more than a property quarrel. Fulanis have been responsible for at least 45,000 Christian deaths since 2009.
And that’s just one part of the danger puzzle facing Nigerian Christians. The larger picture is the growing power of various jihadi groups in the Sahel and West Africa like Boko Haram and the Islamic State Sahel Province (IS-Sah). In some countries like Bukina Faso, they control more territory than the government does.
In the past 15 years as key jihadi leaders like Osami Bin Laden, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi were taken off the board, Western observers breathed a sigh of relief, assuming such endings would signal the weakening of—and possibly even the ending of the worldwide Jihad movement. Instead, organizations like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have proved quite fertile, spawning tenacious offspring in lands far from their Middle Eastern and Central Asian roots. Africa is now Jihadi Central as Islamists have become major players in West and Central African countries including Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, Sudan, and Mozambique. And their soldiers are convinced that they will yet be part of erecting a worldwide caliphate. One in which residents who are infidels must either pay a tax…, or die.
So…, may I exhort you to pray for the demise of the jihadi groups, for the courage of suffering believers, and for the bold witness of those who face great trials and death. And I trust that my life will bring honor to Christ, whether I live or die. (Philippians 1:20)