Rev 21:7 “He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be my son”.

Christians are being persecuted around the world today in different ways for different reasons. The disciple Paul suffered persecution throughout his ministry, which he gladly bore for Jesus name sake". . .

Satan has deceived the world to stop people from knowing the truth.

The disciple Paul was commissioned to go to the gentiles "to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God . . ." (Acts 26:18) in other words he was commissioned to bring salvation to the gentiles. His ministry attracted immense opposition as well as persecution.

The world will hate you for doing the work of Christ, you will be falsely accused and persecuted because Satan is not happy when you are speaking truth and opening the eyes of those he has blinded so that they come to see we have a savior to all our problems in life through Christ Jesus.

He would not have you believe that we have a heavenly father who adores us and wants to be involved in our lives whose desire is that above all things that we live in health and prosperity. Satan wants us all to be defeated, blind to the truth, living with sickness, suffering, bitterness of mind and heart, rejected and rebelling against God. He wants us to think; if there is a God why has he allowed this to happen and why doesn’t he get me out of this situation and heal me. Satan wants us to ultimately give up on God and blame him for our problems. When the truth is God has already made a way through his only son Jesus Christ for every problem.

You need to have your eyes opened to the truth to realize God has provided all you need through Jesus, Jesus has already healed you by the 39 stripes he bore at Calvary, He has suffered in every way so we don’t have to, He has defeated Satan and given us the victory. It is by faith and knowing God cannot lie that we walk in that faith and claim the freedom Christ Jesus has won, over our lives.

Although we can live in freedom Jesus did not promise that we would not suffer persecution, in fact he said if we are working the works of the Holy Spirit then persecution will be a part of the Christian life.  God can use persecution for different reasons, in Phillip we see it was used to advance the gospel.

God will test us to see if we are able to endure the test of being a true disciple. Persecution shows God who will stand firm and who will bear up under it. Only those who can stand now will be able to stand later on as greater persecution will come as he uses us to advance his kingdom. As he uses us more and more he will give us greater battles to face, the good news is that also means bigger victories, which are even more joyous.

There will be some who will not be able to bear up under persecution:

Satan is the one trying to stop the Word of God from being proclaimed, he wants you to fall he wants to stop you working the works of Christ Jesus.

If you don’t stay and fight the battle, Satan will overcome you anyway, it is far better to learn to fight against the evil forces.

Its all about a relationship with God and putting your trust in him knowing that in him there is no fear and God will work things out as we lift him up and praise him.

We do not fight against (people) flesh and blood, we are to love our enemies and forgive those who persecute us, it is the demons in that person that we fight against. What we need to do is to pray for our enemies, bless them and ask for the person’s eyes to be opened to what they are doing and pray for their salvation.