Live every day as if the
Son of Man were at the door, and gear your thinking to the fleeting moment.
Just how can it be redeemed? Walk as if the next step would carry you across
the threshold of Heaven. Pray. That saint who advances on his knees never
retreats. - Jim
Elliot
Your word is a lamp to my feet
And a light to my path.
Chinese Christians jailed for faith
memorize Bible because guards ‘can’t take what’s hidden in your heart’
By Caleb Parke | Fox
News
An
American pastor who went to China to train faith leaders experiencing Christian persecution quickly realized he had more to learn
from them.
Wayne
Cordeiro, pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Honolulu, Hawaii, shared
about a recent trip to China with 22 Christian leaders in the communist
country, 18 of whom had been imprisoned. He said they told him they
smuggled Bible passages on small pieces of paper for others to memorize. Their
meeting was underground.
PASTOR IMPRISONED IN TURKEY FOR HIS CHRISTIAN FAITH SAYS YOUTH
AREN’T ‘PREPARED FOR WHAT IS COMING’
"If we
get caught what will happen to me?" the pastor asked the Chinese
Christians who took a 13-hour train ride to attend the leadership meeting, held
in a 700-square-foot hotel room with no air conditioning.
"Well,
you will get deported in 24 hours, and we will go to prison for three
years," they responded.
RIVAL GANG MEMBERS RISK THEIR LIVES TO GET BAPTIZED TOGETHER IN
TEXAS MAXIMUM-SECURITY PRISON
The 22 Chinese
Christian leaders from the Hunan Province, the mountainous area in southern
China, oversaw 22 million people in total in the country with 1.3 billion
people.
In the beginning, short on Bibles, the Hawaii megachurch pastor asked them to
turn to 2 Peter and he realized one of the women handed her Bible to another
leader but she managed to recite the entire book.
IRAQI CHRISTIAN SURVIVES BEING BURNED ALIVE BY ISIS 3 TIMES:
'[JESUS] SPOKE TO ME'
During a break
he asked her about it. She said they have a lot of time in prison.
"Don't
they confiscate the Bible?" Cordeiro asked.
They smuggle
in pieces of paper with portions of Scripture on them.
CHINESE OFFICIALS WARN CHRISTIANITY IS 'ENORMOUS HARM' TO
SOCIETY
“That’s why we
memorize it as fast as we can because even though they can take the paper away,
they can’t take what’s hidden in your heart,” she shared with him.
At the
conclusion of the three-day study, Cordeiro asked them how he could pray for
them.
One man responded
that he wanted to be free to worship: “Could you pray that one day we could
just be like you?”
CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION CLOSE TO 'GENOCIDE LEVELS,' LARGELY
IGNORED DUE TO 'POLITICAL CORRECTNESS': REPORT
But the Hawaii
pastor said he would not do that.
“I will not
pray that you become like us, but I will pray that we become just like you,” he
responded.
Christine Caine, a Christian activist and evangelist,
shared a similar story at "Heaven Come" conference in Los Angeles in May.
TRANSLATING THE BIBLE IS SAVING LANGUAGES FROM EXTINCTION
Caine was
invited to a gathering with 500 leaders of the Chinese underground church who
asked her to teach them how to lead young people, worried they were losing them
to Western values.
"'We
don't understand anything about leadership, we don't understand about Western
leadership methods. Could you help us? All we know how to do to is pray, all we
know how to do is believe God. That's how we had revival in China when we're
not allowed to carry the Word of God. The only leadership training we give our
people is, we teach them how to witness to their executioner on their way to
their execution.'"
She froze and
then asked them to lay hands on her and pray for her.
"I
thought, 'what am I doing here?" she said. "I literally said, 'I'm
not sure if I'm a Christian.' You're asking me? No, you can all lay hands
on me. You can all lay hands on me and give me the kind of faith that
says, 'I'm going to witness to my executioner on the way to my execution...I
want the kind of faith that causes Jesus to marvel."
INTERNET SOURCE:
https://www.foxnews.com/faith-values/chinese-christians-imprisoned-for-faith-memorize-bible-guards-cant-take-whats-hidden-in-your-heart
