Mark 19:29-31 “Truly I tell you,” said Jesus, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for My sake and for the gospel will fail to receive a hundredfold in the present age—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and fields, along with persecutions—and to receive eternal life in the age to come. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”
Jesus answered to Peter who said “We left everything for you”.
Mainly in the North America churches have discussed and fought on the first part of Jesus prediction: receiving the hundred fold blessings, but mainly they have failed to discuss the “persecution”. In many years living in Canada the word is used mainly to refer the church in Middle East.
Many Christians call and claim the blessings, specifically those they can touch, but rarely we pray like the first church after they have been ordered to stop preaching Jesus. “Lord give us power, to preach in the midst of persecution”. Today if a Christian preacher stands up in public places and preaches to the pagans and calls them to repent, many others will use him as an improper example of today’s’ christian. We don;t talk about sins anymore, we talk about grace. We don’t talk about prayer meetings, but BBQs. Even when we announce a prayer meeting, mainly it is only 10 minutes in the end.
We like to be invited at the sinners feasts not to shine the light but just to be present. We don’t offend anymore sinners, but we pray and hope that God will convince and change them. Basically we don’t want trouble!
We want to preach the Bible of the first century, try to copy the church in the first century, but we don’t want to pay like them, we just want the results.
Something needs to change in our thinking, talking, preaching and doing.
Brother Endrit Journey 