Sunday, May 15, 2011

Sunday Faith Blog...Iranian Christians

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven"....Matthew 5's 10th Beatitude.  

My dear Iranian Christian friend tells me that thousands of Muslims are coming to faith in Christ in Iran.  I wanted to link my readers to the amazing difficulties they are having there because of their faith and ask you to pray for them:

Arrested for evangelism

In solitary confinement

Arrested for journalism

Armenian-Iranian pastor in prison

Sharing the Word in spite of persecution

Requests for Bibles at "all time high" even back in 2007....

I remember that Christmas Day caused many arrests in Iran of Christians......There have always been Christians in Iran, particularly Armenians, and the government has not done much over the many years, so clamping down now shows us that the faith is growing to the point that the Islamists are getting rougher. 

Please keep Iranian Christians in your prayers....for and end to persecution, for a chance to safely witness to interested friends and loved ones, to contrast the love of Jesus with what they know.

And, it's not just Iran, of course......Peaceful Christians did a sit-in in front of Egypt's television station protesting their attacks by Muslims so the Muslims attacked.them....oh, the irony.

Have a wonderful Sunday and be grateful we can worship in public and write as we do.........so far.

Z

17 comments:

Always On Watch said...

Muslims throughout the Islamic world are converting to Christianity. May of the converts remain secret converts.

But "the harvest of souls" is happening!

elmers brother said...

Praying for my brothers and sisters.

Z said...

AOW, MOST of them have to remain secret, which is why the world doesn't know of this amazing phenomena, but the people on the ground are seeing it.
Campus Crusades is getting requests for 10,000 Bibles a DAY in the Middle East.
Hal Lindsey's ex wife is a dear friend and she hears a lot.

Elbro....beautifully said.


A dear friend of mine, a Persian Christian who lives in L.A>, may be reading these comments...please drop her a line of encouragement for her countrymen if you feel so inspired!

Anonymous said...

Can the word and the power of God, really free the heathens from the slavery of islam?

Z said...

Imp, are you kidding?

Anonymous said...

Am I kidding? Of course not, if all this rush towards Christianity is true.

And I'd like to believe it is. Cause it's one sure way to cripple the spread of islamist fascism.

Z said...

You're exactly right, m'friend.
It's the ONLY way to cripple islamists.
As I said, people can't come out and shout it yet but they are coming in DROVES.........and that's a good thing.
People who really 'get' Jesus, don't kill in His name. WHen idiots say "Christians killed Jews" it's not Christians with a heart for Jesus, NO WAY. Hitler was no CHristian, for example.
Ya, the Muslims I know who've converted are more intense than any American Christian I know...that love just doesn't come out of Islam ; in other faiths, it's up to us to love God, to keep striving to be like GOd, etc. Jesus frees people from that. He loved us first and believing in Him is it. And that changed heart which comes from this and continued studying Scripture does 'magic'.
I totally trust the muslims converting; I'd be very wary if they were shouting it from the rooftops and not getting killed by other muslims :-) It'd be like a false security for us thinking they're changed and won't kill in the name of Allah anymore.

My Iranian friend said we need to always remind people of Jesus' LOVE and treat them with that kind of love....she says that appeals to Muslims very much.

Z said...

From a friend via email just now: More firsthand information:

"One of the missions UACC (an Armenian church here in L.A.) supports sends Bibles to Iran. One lady on the church staff and also on that committee went to Iran with a group. They had to be very careful in all that they did.

People had secret meetings in homes for Bible study and prayer. There were converts all the time. Iranians are not Arabs and want to keep separate though they are Moslem. They are intelligent people and educated. Another lady from that group who works with this mission all the time came in person to report to us. She told interesting stories of the dedication of those Christians."

This is more wonderful news....keep praying, folks.
China, too, is coming to Christ in even bigger droves and that might be our ONLY chance. Heck, S Korea has the biggest church in the world...and their workers went to Japan to help after the tsunamis...maybe God's working that way, too?

Z said...

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2011/05/15/man-accused-of-supporting-taliban-to-appear-in-la-court/

The headline is MAN ACCUSED OF SUPPORTING TALIBAN ARRESTED....

(he was kept 1/2 miles from my house, I just found out....I'm glad I didn't know before. There's nothing I could have done but I'd sure have wished I COULD)

So, the MAN's father is an IMAM.
If this was a Pastor's son, how many of you know the headline would have read PASTOR'S SON ARRESTED...?
If it had been a sports figure's son, how many of you know that the headline would have read NBA STAR'S SON ARRESTED..

ya. I thought so, too.

Anonymous said...

Much love for these new believers. May they persevere in their faith.

Silverfiddle said...

"be grateful we can worship in public and write as we do.........so far."

Amen to that!

Bob said...

I took several minutes to comment on the fantastic quality of this blog, and the quality of opinion represented in your articles. Because of the touch pad on my laptop taking advantage of me, the whole five paragraphs was lost instantaneously.

I will get my breath, and try again, later.

bob
Damn Good Blog

Mark said...

God bless those brave souls. We struggle to keep and carry our faith here where we have religious freedom (so far), and they face a very real and present danger every day. That is true courage. I wonder if I could stand up to such harassment. I pray to God that I could. I hope I never have to find out.

Bob said...

(deep breath)

I appreciate the information in your post as it is the kind of stuff we cannot get from standard news outlets, primarily because religion is not important to them. They decide to push information that agrees with whatever agenda is popular in the MSM group-think crowd at the moment.

Islam has been a curious thing to me for a long time. Adherents of Islam don't seem to be very thoughtful about their belief, and when challenged seem to resort to tribal-oriented, barbaric responses of "kill the unbelievers" instead of discussing the issues.

Islam does not seem to be able to defend itself in the world of ideas.

Where is the promise of salvation? How about redemption? How about not having to self-flagellate to earn your way into God's affections?

Thanks for pointing out that people are suffering and dying for their Christian faith at the hands of Muslims of 6th with century mentalities.

My prayers are certainly with them.

bob
Really Cool Blog

Z said...

Bob! "Damn good blog" "Really Cool Blog" those cracked me UP!
But wait...were you going to write about liking MY BLOG or YOURS? :-) (I couldn't resist saying that!)

Where is the promise of salvation, indeed? This is why my Iranian friend says to approach Muslims about CHrist with love and kindness...modeling our faith. She said it SO plaintively in the bible study group I lead (i'm one of many leaders in a huge study) that I'll never forget it. It kind of stopped me short; she's right, we're angry at muslims, we're RIGHTFULLY condemnatory of the parts of their faith which wish us harm and have succeeded in harming us...but fighting back is necessary WHEN necessary, and showing them a different, sweeter, loving way is FAR more necessary in the long run.

Bob said...

Z: My link descriptions were just a spur of the moment thing. There were other candidates like, "Live Nudes", or "Get Your Porn Here". I just felt that you might be sensitive about that kind of stuff.

It was also my not so subtle attempt to get you to use the NAME/URL method of signing in. I am not sure why Blogger does things the way they do.

Thanks. I do like you blog.

bob
Incredible Blog

Z said...

Oh, GOD, Bob! I BURST into laughter when I read that! You are hilarious!
I'm watching THE TUDORS...trust me, I'm getting 'my porn' THERE :-)
sex/argument/sex/argument! geeeZ

Bob, you're terrific :-)