The Blessing of Freedom

Recently, I've had several ìinstant messageî and e-mail conversations with a friend of mine who is currently living in China. He and his wife are doing mission work in this country. As you might imagine, mission work presents many challenges to those involved, whether the work is being done stateside or in a foreign country. When it comes to working in a communist country, there are even more challenges presented to the workers. My friend has had to communicate with me in an almost code-like way. His internet chatter is always being monitored by the Chinese government. He and his wife have been under some amount of constant scrutiny. You see, my friends are not free to announce that they are Christians and that they are working in China under the auspices of the Church. It is not a situation where the Chinese government ìfrownsî on Christian missionaries and their Kingdom work -- the government has made it clear that it is illegal and that there are grave consequences for attempting to teach about Jesus.

Grave consequences. I just do not fully appreciate the impact these words have. I do not know that I can. I mean, I have every right to believe in Jesus. I have every right to follow Jesus. I have every right to show others who Jesus is. I have every right to share with you the impact the Savior has had on my life. And I can believe, follow, show, and share all of this virtually anywhere I please. I can have discussions (and frequently do) about Jesus with people all across our country, and I can use the phone or the internet or the postal service to do so. Our religious freedom is an awesome blessing.

I think ìblessingî is the operative word here. Religious freedom is not, at least in all contexts, a fore-drawn conclusion. Even thousands of years ago, freedom to worship God or to follow Jesus was considered a blessing. There were many people (some we have Scriptural record of) that feared various repercussions for their beliefs. The bible tells of a blind man having his sight restored by Jesus. The Pharisees called the blind man's family in on the proverbial carpet because, as the text states, ì...anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue.î The former blind man's parents cracked under this pressure and thrust the focus onto their son. The man had courage enough to stand up to the Pharisees and to stand for Jesus. John 9:34 tells us that the man was cast out of the synagogue for his profession of faith in Christ.

We know that Saul (later Paul) made a living imprisoning, torturing, and killing Christians. Many people lost their lives as they professed a belief in Jesus. It is rather ironic that Paul would later face his own persecution from people who did not exactly trust his claims to be a changed man who called himself Paul the apostle. Many people did believed in Jesus because of Paul's missionary work, but I cannot help but wonder how many were turned off to his message because of his reputation.

I suppose the stories that came out of Columbine, Colorado will always be with the modern-day Christian, too -- stories of young people staring at the end of a gun barrel and being asked whether or not they believe in Jesus. The ultimate price was paid by more than one teenager that day because they took a stand for the Lord.

Even in our free country, the disciple of Jesus is not always free from the repercussions of discipleship. But to those who persevere, to those who overcome, Jesus says you will not be hurt at all by the second death; rather you will be given the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God