Prayer at Work...

*this post has been re-edited due to the sensitive nature of it's contents

"I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go." ~Abraham Lincoln

Here's a followup to an earlier post where we asked you to be praying for fellow co-workers who are in prison for the sake of the gospel. We've been wanting to update you but because it's an incredibly sensitive situation we have to be quite vague (we wish we could share it in detail because it's incredible). But the good news is,

As a result of the imprisonment, other people have come to know the LORD and immediately began to share the good news with their friends and relatives. People are recognizing that the prayers of the prisoners are being answered and some who oppose them have even come to ask for prayer and they've been healed! As part of the trial procedings, the prisoners have been told to explain why they believe that gospel is true, which gave them the opportunity to quote Christ's words and explain the gospel to everyone in the courtroom. People are stunned that the prisoners aren't vengeful. Instead they are showing a supernatural love for the people who are persecuting them.

Surprisingly, of all the prayer requests, not one of them were for the prisoners to be released. Instead they asked for God to be glorified. They said, "God is answering your prayers. Please continue. This is a great time to be alive and to be involved!"

It's like the events of the book of Acts continue even now. When I heard this report I was instantly filled with excitement, and then I quickly felt like a very small, spoiled christian. These people have lost so much for the sake of the gospel and they continue to risk it all so that in some way God will be glorified through it. I remember reading about one of my heroes, Jim Elliot, and the 4 other missionaries who were martyred in Ecuador trying to bring the gospel to a people who didn't know it.

I'm end this post with one of my favorite quotes from him, "We are still utterly ordinary, so commonplace, while we profess to know a power the 20th-century does not reckon with. But we are harmless, and therefore unharmed. We are spiritual pacifists, non-militants, conscientious objectors in this battle to the death with principalities and powers in high places. Meekness must be had for contact with men, but brash, outspoken boldness is required to take part in the comradeship of the cross. The world cannot hate us, we're too much like its own. Oh that God would make us dangerous!" Amen.