Another Ignominious Day

On January 23, 1972 President Nixon announced that an agreement to end the Vietnam Way had been reached.  The Paris Peace Accords document was entitled "An Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam.”   It was officially signed on January 27.   The resulting carnage inflicted on the people of South Korea by the Hanoi government paved the way for the oppressive regime, which remains one of the world’s most cruel suppressors of Christianity, to replicate the atrocities associated with North Korea and China after the Korean “Cease Fire,” and the subjugation of Eastern Europe by Russia following the implementation of “The Marshall Plan.”  The sacrifice by freedom loving peoples of their brightest and bravest in that terrible war resulted in ignominious withdrawal without victory. 

But, dear friends, there is a far graver ignominy facing greater Christendom in these days.  The victorious shots were fired two thousand years ago when Jesus Christ defeated Satan upon Calvary’s tree by dying a victorious death, descending into the blackness of the earth, rising triumphantly on the third day, and ascending forty days later to prepare for His soon return when all peoples everywhere will acknowledge His victorious Kingship.

Yet, His followers today, often act as if they were on the losing side in that great battle.  Professing Believers wring their hands at the futile attempts by the defeated enemy to subjugate them, and cower at his apparent strength, seemingly forgetting that he has already been defeated and the evidence of that defeat resides in the hearts of genuine Believers everywhere.  The failure of those Believers to appropriate the power to live victoriously in this age, has resulted in the chastising hand of God upon His peoples because those whom He loves, He chastises.

It is therefore incumbent upon those of us who confess Him as Lord to discipline ourselves in light of Hebrews Chapter Twelve in the following areas:
    1. Honest self-examination of conscience to uncover that with which God is displeased.
    2. Earnest prayer for God’s intervention in the affairs of those who need to trust in Him, and for His guidance in our own daily doings.
    3. Persistent patience as molds us into instruments capable of demonstrating the “peaceable fruit of  righteousness” as our will is broken to His.
    4. Consistent faith which shows the oppressors that our joy is not dependent upon external circumstances.
    5. Confident expectation of the “Blessed Hope” which will eventually justify our dedication to His purposes over the temporal pleasures of this world.
    6. Love for The Father must so overflow our being that the enemy of Christ and His followers is amazed by its depth, breath, width, and its durability.


From “A Word For Living” by Mike Rasberry

©                       2013                     Mike Rasberry