David Piper-September 10th

Chapter 11-Delighting in God’s Word

This chapter really hit home to me.  When I read about the 20 leaders (over-seeing 22 million people!) of the house church movement enduring 13 hours train rides, risking torture and prison for just believing in Christ it struck me in a few different ways…

First thought 22 million! Wow!  What awesome growth within the Church and that was just under these 20 leaders.

Second thought was how much we take for granted our freedoms to worship and having easy access to bibles, and much more.  How many people (with total access to many great churches) in our country call themselves Christians yet find convenient reasons not to attend church (except maybe on special holidays), or take no time at all to spend with God.  In our culture, I believe one of the enemy’s greatest weapons against us is our pride in how busy our schedules are.  I can remember telling myself, “Nobody quite understands how busy my schedule is!”  It was easy to convince myself that at some point I will make time for the important things like loved ones and maybe even God!  Then, another day passes and nothing changes… hit rewind and play.  It becomes easy to justify why you can’t help a neighbor, volunteer for something, attend church… it’s because of my busy schedule!  The one thing that saved me is that I have always felt Christ for most of my life.  I drifted but never quite lost the pull of the Spirit to get me to return.  Thank God!  Then I compared this to these 20 leaders… they had the time.  Eighteen of twenty had spent time in prison (some still had the scars of being shackled) for having Faith in an unseen Messiah.  The end result is such a passion for God and a desire to know him better that they gladly risked going back to prison for a bible study!  Maybe we could all use a little prison time in order to memorize scripture!   OK, a little extreme but the only way to know more of Christ is to spend time in the word.

This bought me to my next thought.  I realized an odd parallel to these 20 leaders in my own life.  The stronger their walk became, the more influence God gave them… the more influence God gave them, the more they suffered persecution… the more they suffered persecution, the more they sought God and their relationship with God grew.  I believe this to be true not just for myself, but for a lot of Christians.  When you give yourself to Christ and you begin to grow in your walk, the more influence God will give you.  This will arouse the attention of the enemy… (in our case it may not be our government but the unseen enemy).  As God equips you and you begin to influence others and lead them to Christ the enemy will try and stop it.  It may not be quite as obvious as what these leaders went through but any weakness will be exploited to discourage, frustrate or distract you and stop your calling.  It is only by pressing in and seeking God, deepening our relationship with him and armoring ourselves with Christ can we not only withstand the attacks but begin to push back and regain ground.

This chapter renewed in me the importance to remember in prayer, all the brothers and sisters in Christ, in other parts of the world, that are daring to push back and break strongholds.