Persecuted for believing in Christ

[Mossy]

These Christians have suffered HORRIBLY, and many of you seem to brush it off.

They are, and so is anyone else exposed to Moslems who do not belong to the specific branch of Islam they are exposed to.

Unless they are too dangerous to mess with.

[Redneck]

.

What does any of this have to do with ,,,,

Economic & Business News, Reports, and Predictions...???

>

[frugalcanuck]

The main point of this thread is for us to remember and pray for the Christians being persecuted.

Why not pray for everyone while your at it? Im not religious but I have christian friends that are good people and I have christian friends that are not so good people. Lets just say I have a wide range of friends. Well my point is that I know some of my friends pray for me when Im in a bad situation or about to be in one even though Im not religious and they know very well that I dont believe their prairs have any effect on my outcome. They pray for me anyways.

Someone at my (non-religious) university sent out an email to every university email account on one of the anniversarys of sept 11 telling us we should "prey for the christians who have been harmed by the events of Sept 11." I and alot of others (even christians) thought that showed very little class or respect.

There are good people and bad people in every faith or non-faith. I have learned not to put any value to religion when figuring out peoples character.

[Sheikh_yer_Bu'Tay]

Frugalcanuck, maybe if you were to read up on the plight of persecuted Christians the world over, it might make more sense to you. Here is just one article about it. And if you had read the comments here on this thread, you would know we have called for prayer for peace upon all people the world over. Please read the story and try to have a little compassion for those in harm's way.

Two Christian brothers killed in Mosul
Iraq’s Christian community comes under attack, again. Gunmen shoot and kill two shop owners in cold blood. Iraqi Christians issue an appeal: “Pray for us persecuted Christians”.

Baghdad (AsiaNews) – Anti-Christian violence and persecution continue in Iraq. Two days after a Christian home was attacked in Mosul (northern Iraq), two Iraqi Christians were killed in the city’s Sina’a neighbourhood.

Sources told AsiaNews that unknown thugs entered a store owned by two Christian brothers, Saad and Waad (Raad) Hanna, 43 and 40 respectively, and shot them in cold blood. Waad died instantly, Saad, two hours later.

This is the latest incident in a surge in violence that has hit the Christian community hard in the past few weeks. The bloodiest episode occurred on 31 October when an al-Qaeda affiliated commando stormed the Syriac-Catholic cathedral of Baghdad during Mass. Almost 60 people were killed, including 44 worshippers and 2 religious. For al-Qaeda, Christians are “legitimate targets”.

In view of the latest act of barbarism against them, local Christians have issued a new appeal: “Pray for us persecuted Christians”. (LYR)



Frugalcanuck, can you not find it in your heart to have compassion on this poor woman and her child?

[Mossy]

(ahem) "Prey" and "pray" are somewhat opposite, especially if you are on the receiving end.

[Sheikh_yer_Bu'Tay]

Here is a photo of a burned out church. What did these people do so wrong that their neighbors hate them to this extent? Their only crime is believing in a Savior. Why is that so wrong?

[Sheikh_yer_Bu'Tay]

Here are photos of violence against Christians in Orissa, India.




http://www.turnbacktogod.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/violence-against-christians-in-orissa-0108.jpg
http://www.turnbacktogod.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/violence-against-christians-in-orissa-0115.jpg

[glass]

Cruize around this site and see what radicals think

This link is the children section

http://www.memritv.org/subject/en/178.htm

[Kurr]

MEMRI, ... really?

[Rodebaugh]

The most deadly religion in the history of the world, by far, is communism, followed by national socialism.

That quote about communism, is probably one of the truest things I have ever read on the internet.

Now...

I've got kin that married a muslim fellow. I've met him on several differant occasions, talked and he has always been a top notch, guy. Her family likes him, and he is real good to her. He bought a shop in town and remodled it for her so she can work at what she likes. As far as I'm concerned, he's kin now too.

I served in the Army with a few muslim guys. Great guys to be around. Not saying all are, but the ones I met and got to know.

Just as I consider what we call "Christianity" to have been hijacked and misinterpreted by those who lusted afterpower and control, could it not be safe to say that their core beliefs are also not highjacked in the interpretations by those after power and control? Or those who are riddled with hatred. Or the xenophobic?

There should be a lot less "inaction on correcting their fellow members of that belief system" as Shiek said, in ALL faiths and heaps more love and forgiveness. I've seen about as many BLOODTHIRSTY so called Christians as Muslims, or any other.

I agree with Rosco on our government not supporting Christianity at home, which is what we should focus on. We need to be vocal and lead by example in our daily lives.

Most importantly we need to "try the spirits" of those who would lead us, so we are not led astray.

Steve.....

[glass]

MEMRI, ... really?

Well show me where the radical jews are teaching hate

[PolishPunisher]

I think the vast majority of religious tension is caused by lack of economic opportunity.

[frugalcanuck]

Frugalcanuck, maybe if you were to read up on the plight of persecuted Christians the world over, it might make more sense to you. Here is just one article about it. And if you had read the comments here on this thread, you would know we have called for prayer for peace upon all people the world over. Please read the story and try to have a little compassion for those in harm's way.





Frugalcanuck, can you not find it in your heart to have compassion on this poor woman and her child?

I have read the comments and some of the stories. I do believe I am compassionate. I dont believe I should be compassionate for someone because of their religious beliefs. I do believe the "truth" is often manipulated to help support a cause. For example that poor woman and child appear to not be poor at all and seem very materialstic or western. Could that have any factor in why they are being persecuted? There is a war going on between the western world and some midle eastern states.

I dont doubt there are christians being persecuted for being christian, because there are people being persecuted for anything and everything all of the time. The truth is probibly manipulated by those trying to help. Im not saying manipulating the truth is good or bad because we all do it. Some americans from one the right compare their president to hitler and some canadians from the left compare their priminister to hitler as well. There may be factual comparisons made on both cases but to do that the truth must be manipulated to support the cause.

I dont think ones religious beliefs should be a factor in determining if they deserve compassion.

[Redneck]

Again...

What does any of this have to do with ,,,,

Economic & Business News, Reports, and Predictions...???

>

[psi]

It probably is more of a "Members only discussion" type of thread.

[Kurr]

MEMRI, ... really?

Well show me where the radical jews are teaching hate

I could quote the talmud, or any number of political leaders, but one of the teachings is that we be unifiers and not spread divisiveness.

If I quoted a bunh of stuff then it would be "fuel to the fire" and give much reason for some to agree and others to rebutt, but these subjects in and among themselves and the ensuing debate would cause, I fear, divisiveness unneccesarily among participants, and I think would not be a good thing to bring to this forum I like so much and people I really enjoy, so I decline in that respect. Plus the "keywords" would bring trolls.

But, in answer to your question, the link to MEMRItv did just that. I would not ask a Russian to explain/translate American speech/teachings at the hieght of the cold war. Nor would I ask the pristhood of catholosism to translate Muslim works during the crusades. Why would I trust Israeli translations of Arab speech/teaching now?

Memeri, was founded by "former" Israeli intelligence officers and in my opinion, are nothing but a propaganda arm of that state.

Redneck, I do not know either, the thread should be moved to General Discussion in the members only section.

And what are the laws of these countries? I have heard our chaplins must remove the cross from thier collars in Saudia Arabia. If I am led to go to a country where Christianity is forbidden by law, and preach the gospels, would it not be my cross to bear to be persecuted, or my duty to preach in the prisons as Paul did?

I could be mistaken but doesn't the book of Revelations say that those who are martyred here in this world for Christ will sit at his right hand?

1 Corrinthians 13 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

[Kurr]

http://www.ecclesia.org/truth/love.html

Love

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Here we are at the heart of the paradox of Christianity. To love, one must die, extinguish oneself, extinguish bodily egoism, extinguish the temptation of the world, in order to live for God, in God, with God, eternally.

What does it mean to love? It means to place another at the center of one’s life. Do I love my child? I do if my child matters to me more than I matter to myself, if I regard myself as existing to make it possible for the child to come to a good maturity. If this desire is lacking in me, if what I chiefly desire is rather that my child shall amuse me and serve me, or, even worse, that my child shall not bother me, shall not prevent my doing as I please, when I please, then I do not love my child; I love myself. Do I love my friend? I do if I look on that friend with thoughts not of what that friend may do for me but of what I may do for that friend.


In our day, the word "love" is greatly abused. "I am in love," we say, and mean by this that we wish to be loved. Now being loved is a pleasant experience, but it is not a necessary one. "To be loved" - that is passive. I do nothing. I sit serene and complacent while someone loves me. To love is not a passive thing. "To love" is active. When I love I do something, I function, I give. I do not love in order so that I may be loved back again, but for the creative joy of loving. And every time I do so love I am freed from enslavement to that most intolerable of masters, myself.


My beloved, my parent, my child, my friend, my mate, may or may not love me in return, or may once have loved me in return but have ceased to love me in return. That does not fatally matter. If he or she does not love in return, I can still love. "For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye?" asks Jesus (Matthew 5:46). "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven:" (Matthew 5:44-45).


No one can take away from me the one great treasure, the love I bear without demand of love. The beloved may hate or kill, but there is one thing the beloved who spurns my love can never do. He or she can never break my heart. When one cries out that the beloved has broken one’s heart, it is not love that has caused the heartbreak. it is rather disappointed self-esteem.


This is a hard saying, this assurance from God Himself that happiness is arrived at only in terms of loving without demand of love. It is so hard a saying that we keep struggling to find some way of happiness less onerous. We eat and drink; but we are not merry. Or we seek to find in amusement the key to felicity; and before long we are bored. Or we cry out for applause; but soon we are more and more aware that those who flatter us are apt to be fools, or knaves with an ulterior motive in their adulation, or both. Or we crave meaning in terms of exercise of power; and find ourselves hated, condemned to dwell at last with our tiresome selves. Or we suppose that increase of knowledge will suffice; only to find that the more facts we master, the more the meaning of things and of ourselves continue to elude us. So disappointing are these lesser avenues that most of us give up the search for real happiness. Instead, we compromise with life, hiding our lonesomeness even from ourselves, daring no longer to live in terms of high romance. No, nothing can take the place of love.


How very hard it is to love! We must love without demand. But we cannot love that way. This is man’s tragedy, the tragedy called Sin. For what is Sin? It is the refusal to love. And the wages of Sin is death (Romans 6:23).


But Jesus not only commands this incredibly difficult loving, He also promises divine assistance in loving. He reveals to us that God is the perfect lover. We who are incompetent lovers, we who are afraid to love without demand of love, when we approach God in prayer, find ourselves touched by Him, are empowered to dare the impossibly necessary. His love breaks down our cowardice. He gives us power to become the sons of God, free to live, free to care, free to suffer vicariously for the unloving. Loving with no demand of love remains as hard as ever, but it is no longer a thing impossible.


1 John 4:8, "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love."
Unless we are able to love others, we cannot really know and love God. If you don't love someone you can see, how can you love God whom you have not seen (1 John 4:20)?




Love and the Commandments:



As followers of Christ, we are supposed to live on the basis of God’s knowledge found in Scripture. But most Christians function no differently than non-Christians. Most will not obey God’s Law.


Take, for example, the phrase that Christians use every day, "I just love Jesus." When asked to define love, most will say something like "Love is patient, love is kind, love is blah, blah, blah," and so on. But, these verses ‘describe’ love, not ‘define’ it. Thus, they do not know the difference between a description and a definition. If one cannot define love, one does not know whether he loves or not. Without such a definition, held clearly and self-consciously in the mind, one could hate someone else and never know it!




The Definition of Love



Of course, Scripture defines love very clearly, but this definition implies certain things that the modern Christian doesn’t want to deal with. So, just what is love? Well, our Lord defines love as:


2 John 1:6, "And this is love, that we walk after his commandments."


1 John 5:2-3, "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous."


Romans 13:8,10, "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law."


John 14:15, "If ye love me, keep my commandments."


John 14:21, "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him."


John 15:10,12, "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you."


1 John 2:3-5, "And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him."


1 John 3:23, "And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment."


1 John 4:21, "And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also."


John 13:34-35, "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another."


Galatians 5:14, "For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."


James 2:8, "If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:"


Genesis 22:18, "And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice."


Mark 12:30-31, "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these."




Conclusion



Looking at the Ten Commandments, the first four Commandments show us how to love God. The last six Commandments show us how to love our neighbor. The reason Christians do not deal with the definition of love is because it has implications that they do not like. These implications are that if a Christian is to truly love his wife and family, the church body, his neighbors, his enemies, and all else, then he can only do so by keeping God’s Law. If we take this seriously, it means we must obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29), and this will bring us into confrontation with the world.


Romans 8:7, "Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."
This is the reason why commandment keeping has never been popular. To those who desire a way of forgetting God which will pass for remembering Him, a gospel of "love" that requires no obedience is readily accepted.

The bottom line is, love is what one does, not what one feels or professes. Love is a verb, love is an action. ‘Actions speak louder than words’ is an implied maxim of God’s Law. Knowing God’s plan for us is not difficult if we stick to God’s Word and not the opinions of men and the humanist world. The most important law to know is God’s Law because it is our standard by which we measure and judge all other systems of law. Then, when we confront other laws and measure it by God’s standard, we can judge whether such laws are godly or not.


Psalms 119:18, "Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law."
Obedience is easy when you know you are being guided by a God who never makes mistakes.

[Sheikh_yer_Bu'Tay]

Frugalcanuck, maybe if you were to read up on the plight of persecuted Christians the world over, it might make more sense to you. Here is just one article about it. And if you had read the comments here on this thread, you would know we have called for prayer for peace upon all people the world over. Please read the story and try to have a little compassion for those in harm's way.





Frugalcanuck, can you not find it in your heart to have compassion on this poor woman and her child?

I have read the comments and some of the stories. I do believe I am compassionate. I dont believe I should be compassionate for someone because of their religious beliefs. I do believe the "truth" is often manipulated to help support a cause. For example that poor woman and child appear to not be poor at all and seem very materialstic or western. Could that have any factor in why they are being persecuted? There is a war going on between the western world and some midle eastern states.

I dont doubt there are christians being persecuted for being christian, because there are people being persecuted for anything and everything all of the time. The truth is probibly manipulated by those trying to help. Im not saying manipulating the truth is good or bad because we all do it. Some americans from one the right compare their president to hitler and some canadians from the left compare their priminister to hitler as well. There may be factual comparisons made on both cases but to do that the truth must be manipulated to support the cause.

I dont think ones religious beliefs should be a factor in determining if they deserve compassion.

What makes her "poor" is the grief she feels at the the untimely murder of her loved ones.

May you one day be visited by intense sorrow and have compassion withheld form you in the same way you do so now.

[Mossy]

I dont believe I should be compassionate for someone because of their religious beliefs. I do believe the "truth" is often manipulated to help support a cause. For example that poor woman and child appear to not be poor at all and seem very materialstic or western. Could that have any factor in why they are being persecuted? There is a war going on between the western world and some midle eastern states.

"Poor" also means "one who is suffering" and why should anyone be persecuted for being anything? You are here in a web site that panders to materialism, specifically, the accrual of wealth. Should you be persecuted for your materialistic ways?

Yes, there is a war going on between the western world and some middle eastern states. It is just one facet of a war between people of a middle eastern ideology and the rest of the world, declared by that middle eastern ideology, 1600 years ago, by a slick talking bandit chief. Consider the implications of Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb, "land of peace" and "land of war" respectively. Although these concepts were not verbalized until the 13th Century, they existed long before, in practice and in attitude, and they exist today. Whenever you read of "the uma", that's dar al-Islam.

Although MEMRI has that taint, they have tried to be accurate enough to avoid being accurately charged with misquoting or mis-translating what they claim. There is a problem with all translators; most are either Moslem or Jewish. We just don't have very many nuetral translators around.