Jose Morelos

We grow through trials and persecution, (James 1:1-3.) The enemy knows that the persecution of Christ followers, by governments or established powers, strengthens the church. (i.e.: more bibles are distributed throughout certain countries during times of persecution than other times.) The enemy, therefore, has shifted strategy today; instead of persecution he has instigated in us a complacence, a sense of security, satisfaction and entitlement. He has helped us to trivialize our relationship with God and have it reduce it to how much comfort we have. We do not expect anything short of that because "we deserve to be comfortable and undisturbed."

Satan  is using with us the same three temptation he used with Jesus, (Mat. 4:1-10):

Losing a job are having bad health or having a relationship to goes sour.

 

I grew up in country were people, during holy week, parade while hitting themselves with leather lashes, pebbles and dull nails attached to the end of the strands. They do this in order to "suffer for Christ." That is an aberration and an evil distortion.

Getting a negative reaction from the world, which affects us physically or emotionally, due to our witness for Jesus, (Mat 5:11-13) It is suffering for Christ due to our repeated boldness in raising His name high, (2 Thessalonians 1:3-5). We are persecuted because our yearning to share about Jesus is stronger than our desire for survival, and thus we incur the ridicule, humiliation, ostracizing and even jail or death. We are persecuted because of our compelling desire to glorify God, not because we want to bring glory to ourselves by being reckless.

In Philippians 3:10, Paul said "…I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death."  What he is saying is that his desire to know Christ and to serve Him, intimately, not just intellectually, is so strong, that he is willing to share in the suffering he went through, even to death.  It isn’t because he just wants to suffer but because, as he puts it, "… our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control; will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body."