Second year high school student Chen Le has been expelled from school for his Christian faith. He had been found by the Bazhou Public Security Agency to have engaged in Christian gatherings, and the school was notified to educate him and persuade him to “mend his ways,” according to the Notice of Expulsion. Chen Le stated emphatically “I would rather be forced out of school than deny my faith,” prompting the school to advise him to transfer Notice of Expulsion document and refusing to renounce his faith, his expulsion has come at a great price for his future. The situation has effectively deprived him of his future education, as he has now been barred from taking the mandatory college entrance exam.
Pray that Chen would continue to serve God and not man. Pray that Chen will stand firm no matter what persecution comes.
My Child, you can never be perfectly free unless you completely renounce self, for all who seek their own interest and who love themselves are bound in fetters. They are unsettled by covetousness and curiosity, always searching for ease and not for the things of Christ, often devising and framing that which will not last, for anything that is not of God will fail completely.
Hold to this short and perfect advice, therefore: give up your desires and you will find rest. Think upon it in your heart, and when you have put it into practice you will understand all things.
My child, you should not turn away or be downcast when you hear the way of the perfect. Rather you ought to be spurred all the more toward their sublime heights, or at least be moved to seek perfection.
I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich . . . (Revelation 3:18)
Rich in heavenly wisdom which treads underfoot all that is low. Put aside earthly wisdom, all human self-complacency.
It’s been said: exchange what is precious and valued among men for that which is considered contemptible. For true heavenly wisdom; not to think highly of self and not to seek glory on earth does indeed seem mean and small and is well-nigh forgotten, as many men praise it with their mouths but shy far away from it in their lives. Yet this heavenly wisdom is a pearl of great price, which is hidden from many.
—Thomas A. Kempis
Islamic extremists shot the leader of an underground church to death outside the capital city of Somalia this month and have threatened to kill his wife, his tearful widow told Compass. Having learned that he had left Islam to become a Christian, Somali militants from the Islamic extremist al Shabaab murderd 41-year-old Mohammed Ahmed Ali. Ali’s wife Hassan said she received threatening calls from members of al Shabaab on Jan. 3 saying, “We know your home and that you are a follower of the Christians, and we are going to kill you the way we killed your husband.” Hassan fled for Kenya early the next morning by bus with her only child, 2-year-old son Abdi Asis Mohammed Ahmed, arriving at Nairobi on Jan. 20.
Pray for Hassan and her 2-year-old son, and for the underground church in Somalia.
The more we fear crosses, the more we have to conclude that we need them. And the heavier our crosses are, the more we have to believe that God loves us. We ought to judge the seriousness of our illnesses by the strength of the treatment the spiritual Physician applies to them.
We must be very corrupt, and God must be very merciful, since he takes great pains to heal us—even though the process of healing may be difficult. So let us turn our crosses themselves into a source of love, comfort and faith, saying with Saint Paul, ‟For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison”.
Happy are those who go forth weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, for they will bring in an indescribably joyful harvest of eternal life!
—François Fenelon
Philippians 2:5-8 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!
This wonderful description of Christ’s descent to our shame and sorrow is here cited by the Apostle, that it might be a living impulse and inspiration to ourselves, not to look upon our own things, not to hold them with a tight grasp, but to be willing to stoop for others to shame, sorrow, and spitting; fulfilling God’s purpose of mercy to the world, even as Jesus Christ, who became the instrument and organ through which God’s redemptive purpose wrought. ‘Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.’ Think these thoughts. Never look exclusively upon your own interests, never count anything of your own worthy to stand in the way, but always be prepared to the last point to deny yourself, that the redemptive purpose of God may flow through the channel of your life to those that sorely need His blessed help. It is a wonderful thing that, day by day, in our poor measure, we may repeat the purpose and the work of Jesus Christ our Emmanuel.
—F.B. Meyer
Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it. If this is true of the book of Revelation, it is even truer of the Bible in general. God has opened a very large treasure for us, to supply our needs. We thank God for giving us so much. If we are too lazy to gather it, this means our thanksgiving is insincere. There is enough material in the Bible to keep us busy for a lifetime. Those who have learned the most realize how little they know. The subject is inexhaustible. As God is infinite, the science of divinity is full of unsearchable wonders. The Psalmist says, To all perfection I see a limit; but your commands are boundless. There is enough in this divine science to employ the understandings of saints and angels to all eternity.
—Jonathan Edwards
Six Christian hostages, among them three children, in Yemen are alive. More than six months ago a German Christian family of five and a British engineer were abducted in the North of the country. Deputy Prime Minister Rashad al-Alaimi has confirmed reports that the German family of five and a British engineer are in the hands of Shiite Houthi rebels. The Germans were forced to care for wounded fighters, he said in the capital Sanaa. Johannes and Sabine Hentschel (both 37) and their children Lydia (5), Anna (3) and Simon (1) as well as a British engineer were kidnapped in mid-June during an outing near Saada. Yemen is one of the strictest Islamic countries. 99 percent of the 21 million inhabitants are Muslims. Small groups of Christians gather in secret.
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Most of the employments of life are in themselves lawful; and all those that are so may be made substantial part of our duty to God if we engage in them only so far, and for such ends, as is suitable to being who are to live above the world all the time that they live in the world. This is the only measure of our application to any worldly business—let it be what it will, where it will, it must have no more of our hands, our hearts, or our time than is consistent with a hearty, daily, careful preparation of ourselves for another life.
Now he who does not look at things of this life in this degree of littleness cannot be said either to feel or believe the greatest truths of Christianity. For if he thinks anything great or important in human business, can he be said to feel or believe those Scriptures which represent this life, and the greatest things of life, as bubbles, vapors, dreams, and shadows?
A tradesman may justly think that it is agreeable to the will of God for him to sell such things as are innocent and useful in life, such as help both himself and others and enable them to assist those who want to be assisted. But if, instead of this, he trades only with regard to himself, if it be his chief end to grow rich that he may live in fame and indulgence and to be able to retire from business to idleness and luxury, his trade, as to him, loses all its innocence and is so far from being acceptable service to God that it is only a more plausible source of covetousness, self-love, and ambition.
Enough, I hope, has been said to show you the necessity of thus introducing religion into all the actions of your common life, and of living and acting with the same regard to God in all you do as in your prayers and alms.
—William Law
People who are genuinely sorry for their sins are grateful for every opportunity to do an act of kindness for those whom they have a wronged. How much good would be done in our churches and in our nation if we lived in contrition and repentance! How many amends would be made that are pleasing to Jesus! Wounds and breaches would be healed, and in the end we would see that by the grace of God many a good thing has come from our sins and failures. If true contrition and repentance seeks and loves punishment, as Luther says, how much more will it seek to make amends! A penitent heart will seek to do all that lies within its power. Thus there is nothing that brings about so many good fruits in our life as a contrite, penitent heart.
And so repentance is the sole foundation upon which everything in the kingdom of God is to be built. Then our spiritual “house” will have a firm foundation and it will not be swept away when a storm comes. All our service in the kingdom of God that is not built upon contrition and repentance will not be of eternal duration. It will not bring true fruit. O that repentance would once more be a gift we would covet for ourselves personally and for our churches! It contains the greatest blessing and grace for us all.
—Basilea Schlink
