Seize the Moment – Day 1186
Pray for the Persecuted Church!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Friday, June 16.
Praying for the persecuted church is a powerful way to support those who are suffering for the gospel of Jesus. Through organizations such as The Voice of the Martyrs, you can join with others to stand with the persecuted church in prayer. While prayer is the most powerful way most of us will lock arms with them, the Holy Spirit may lead you, and your local church, to assist your brothers and sisters who are suffering in other practical ways.
Psalm 74 has been memorized, prayed, and sung by countless believers who have experienced persecution. James Montgomery Boice shares an example from church history:
Singing psalms was very important to the Huguenots, those persecuted Protestants who were driven out of France in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The power of the psalms to bless and fortify them must have been especially feared by their persecutors, for under Louis XIII and Louis XIV many edicts were passed forbidding their use of the Psalter. Nevertheless, these brave people merely hid their books while carrying on their singing in mountain caves or forests, since they knew the psalms by heart.[1]
Psalm 74 is one of the psalms they memorized, meditated upon, and sang to find strength through their times of suffering. The first two verses capture their anguish, and that of all who suffer, “O God, why have You rejected us forever? Why does Your anger smoke against the sheep of Your pasture? Remember Your congregation, which You have purchased of old, which You have redeemed to be the tribe of Your inheritance; and this Mount Zion, where You have dwelt.”
Seize the moment and pray Psalm 74, meditating upon the suffering of the saints throughout the world – “Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body” (Hebrews 13:3). Pray for the persecuted church today! Go to www.persecution.com to learn more.
God bless you!
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YOUTUBE:
If you prefer a video, Pastor Jerry reads his devotion on YouTube as well. Click HERE to visit the page.