The Americans' complacency Romans 8:36

 "As it is written: "For your sake we face death every day, we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." Romans 8:36. 

     In America we are blessed with some amazing freedoms. The one freedom I want to focus on today is the freedom from persecution for our beliefs. This lack of persecution is viewed by the general population as good, but I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps the American Christian wouldn't benefit from persecution. Today around the world thousands of people are suffering because of their on going belief in Christ, but here in America we tend to go to church only when it is convenient to us. Around the world people are being imprisoned and killed for attending church every Sunday; here we have the freedom to attend every Sunday, but tend to go only if we aren't too tired. Around the world people are dying because they were caught with a Bible in their possession, and here in our youth groups our Pastors have to gripe at us over and over to bring our Bibles to church. We as the American Christians have felt safe and content for too long, and with the lack of persecution have become complacent in our worship of God. We have become apathetic to the world around us, and instead of using our freedom to help others we have spoiled our selves into believing that the freedom we were given was meant to benefit ourselves instead of others. It's time to act as if "We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered" and use our freedom to help others, and if that means suffering along with them than just remember that we should count it a blessing to suffer along side our brothers and sisters in Jesus and a blessing to suffer for The God that brought himself low and died for your sin. 

Let me show you love...

The sky blackens with threats of a storm; God's tears fall from above. A man proclaiming to be the song of God is beaten and bruised. Roman soldiers hold his hands and legs to a cross as one of their brethren ready a mallet and a nail. The soldier balances the first on his right wrist, thunder crashes, and the hammer comes down. Where his precious blood falls red spotted clover now grows. Next they balance the nail over His left wrist once again thunder crashes as the hammer falls. They move now to his feet and a final roll of thunder majestically roars as the hammer drives the nine inch steel bar into his shins splitting the bone in his legs. They now stand the cross erect and place upon his head a crown, a mocking crown of thorns, they jeeringly pretend to worship him saying "If you are truly the Prince of Heaven, call your angels to save you." As the crown is placed upon his head it begins to rain in earnest as all the angels in heaven join their King in weeping. The soldiers grew tired of standing around waiting for the man on the cross to suffocate, so after the fashion of roman crucifixion they thrust a spear into his side attempting to break his ribs so he could not breathe, but the spear missed and only increased his agony, and so it came to pass that prophecy was fulfilled saying "and not a bone will be broken" Finally after hours of suffering this man's life came to an excruciating end. As he drew his last breath he swallowed all of man kind's sin. In the moment that he did this he was heard to proclaim "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" for the spirit of God had fled from his body until atonement was paid, God could not be in the presence of sin. And so for three days this man was dead. for three days he paid an eternity's worth of torture for man's soul, so that man could be with God. And that was only the beginning...