LA Story – Courage Under Fire
LA Story celebrated its fifth birthday in January. I just spent the last hour leafing through all of the past issues. It felt good to relive those five years because God has tremendously blessed them. During that time, I wrote about 50 editorials covering many subjects. As I re-scanned them, I was surprised to realize that I had not written a single one of them about persecution. Why not? Because we have faced very little overt persecution in the United States during the past five years. In one sense, persecution is relative – what may be called persecution in one part of he world might be considered as nothing in another. Today, brothers are beaten and imprisoned for their faith in several different countries around the globe. But not in the USA. Never let us take for granted the protection that our basic right of religious freedom gives us. People insulting us and “falsely saying all kinds of evil” against us is about as bad as it gets. While I am thankful that our persecution is minor, we had better be careful that we do not try to avoid it. Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 2:12, “In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” Someone has asked the question, “If you were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”