Pecan Pie and Jesus

In the last decade, nearly one million Christians have been martyred for their faith. Here in America? Well, just this week we celebrated National Pecan Pie Day. Yeah, we're doing okay here in the good ole' US of A. We may think we're being "persecuted" when we get negative comments on social media, or lose a couple friends, or simply when life isn't going as smooth as we thought it would when we gave our lives over to Christ, but we have very safe lives. Take a second to imagine what it would look like to be a Christian in a region where you would be tortured or murdered in horrendous ways just because you had a Bible, held a study group, or stated you were a Christian. Imagine seeing your family and friends having acid poured all over them, burnt alive while locked in a cage, and so on. We may not want to think about it, but it's entirely true that there are regions in the world today that are just as bad or worse overall compared to ancient Rome. What happened in ancient Rome, you ask?

Out of fear that the Roman gods would become angry and cause unrest, the Roman authorities had to deal with this immense amount of Christians that arose suddenly after Christ's death. No, they weren't told to sit in a corner and think about what they've done; they were tortured and murdered in the most humiliating and gruesome ways imaginable. As Tacitus confirms in the historical record, they were covered and sewn into animal skins, fed alive to hungry dogs, crucified, impaled onto stakes and set on fire in order to serve as human candle lights for the Roman passerby, and so on (as stated by other historical sources included being imprisoned, beaten stoned to death, disemboweled, and beheaded).

With that information about ancient Rome in-mind, why exactly did those earliest Christians go through all they did? Nobody dies for what they know to be a lie; they knew Jesus had lived, died, and was resurrected, and was seen alive and well to thousands soon thereafter. They intimately knew Christ was Lord. Tying that in with martyrs today, the Christians in these regions boldly state that Americans and so forth have it much worse. Their reasoning? It's because, they say, Christians who don't live in the daily fear of themselves or their loved ones being tortured and murdered leads to a comfortable, wholly lacking relationship with God. In a media release, Reverend Eric Foley, CEO of Seoul USA, says he was surprised when he first asked members of the North Korean underground church how Americans could pray for them. '"They answered, "You pray for us? We pray for you!" When I asked why, they responded, "Because Western Christians often put so much faith in their prosperity and political freedoms that they don't know what it's like to have to depend completely on God. And because of that, they often do not get to know Him in all the ways He invites us to."'

Speaking of North Korea as an example of this type of region, pictured below is the Korean Peninsula as shown at night by satellite. As you can see, South Korea is filled with light and, in fact, is also filled with the Gospel as one of the most Christianized countries in the whole entire world, while North Korea is a dark concentration camp. This year, November 4th is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. Amazingly, the likes of our North Korean brothers and sisters are praying for Christians in comfortable regions that have National Pecan Pie days.