Today's Devotional

 

November 18, 2008

                                                                                                                        

Subject:  Attacking The Church 

Philippians 3:6 - "Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless." 

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On November 9th, a gay-rights organization called Bash Back, staged a protest against Mount Hope Church in Lansing, Michigan.  I haven't seen this story covered much in the news, but it appeared quite newsworthy and interesting.  The protesters, upset by the passage of Proposition 8 in California stated that they were attacking this particular church because of their, "overt and shameless homophobic events and conferences such as the hell houses that acts like a house of horrors with sinners as the horrors." 

Okay so what's the problem?  The sin in each of us is quite horrific in my view, but I want to simply stress another view of this attack on the church.  This sounds exactly like Paul before he became a believer.  He went around persecuting the church and harassing Christians.  Somewhere along the way, the messages he was attempting to silence, silenced him instead until he could begin to speak for the Christ that he persecuted.

Pray for the church today.  We count it a blessing to persecuted for the cause of righteousness as the church in Michigan was.  We don't want to pray that we be attacked, but that's out of our control.  We want to pray that we not compromise God's message simply because the world wants to Bash Back!  Lets press forward!       

Carlen