Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Deuteronomy 13-15
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Luke 12:8-12
Jesus: That’s why I keep telling you not to be intimidated. If you identify unashamedly with Me before others, I, the Son of Man, will affirm you before God and all the heavenly messengers. But if you deny Me before others, you will be denied before God and all the heavenly messengers. People can speak a word against Me, the Son of Man, and the sin is forgivable. But they can go too far, slandering the testimony of the Holy Spirit by rejecting His message about Me, and they won’t be forgiven for that.
So you can anticipate that you will be put on trial before the synagogues and religious officials. Don’t worry how you’ll respond, and don’t worry what you should say. The Holy Spirit will give you the words to say at the moment when you need them.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
If you haven’t noticed, the freedom we had as Christians in this country has changed significantly over the last twenty years. Where we had complete freedom to express our faith openly in public twenty years ago, we can no longer do that today. We might offend our non-believing neighbors if we put a nativity in the public square or pray at a ball game or mention the name of Jesus during the holiday for which Christmas was named. It’s incredible how much we have fallen in such a short time.
But as Jesus says, we should not be intimidated. We have not yet been executed in public arenas as the early Christians were. We have not yet been blocked from buying food in the market place as the early Christians were. We have not yet had our children ripped out of our homes as the early Christians did. Our freedoms have been degraded here, but they have not fallen as far as they were in early Christendom or as they are in many other parts of the world today. So don’t be intimidated.
Besides, as we talked yesterday, even facing death, those here can only kill the body. Fear the One who can send you to an eternal hell. Fear God.
With the direction the country and the world is going, though, I think we can anticipate Jesus prophecy to His disciples, not just to the first century church, but throughout the ages until His return. Every generation has experienced ever increasing violence against the church. We brought some of it on ourselves when we did stupid things like launch the Crusades in the name of Christ, but the church has always been persecuted. Satan just doesn’t like the church to gain ground against his control over people.
Satan wants to be like old-time radio hero, the Shadow and cloud the minds of men so they cannot see him or the truth. Except he doesn’t want to be the good guy. He wants to keep us from God. He wants to keep us trapped in our selfish desires instead of going after the things of God and His will for us and this planet. He even hides behind the appearance of good things to keep us from doing the things God wants. It might sound a little crazy, but it’s true. We can be totally lost doing good things. Because it’s not good things that get us to heaven. It’s believing in His Son and doing His will. We may sacrifice the best by doing the good.
So we can expect the world, at least as long as Satan is loose in it, to do what it can to disrupt the church. To stand in its way of evangelism. To persecute it and try to persuade believers that God’s way is not the way to find peace and joy. We can expect Satan to continue his lies to extend to us in as many ways as he can to try to get us away from God and win us over to his side. He does not want the church to triumph.
But we know the church will triumph because Jesus has already won the war. His death on the cross and resurrection from the grave demonstrated once and for all His victory over Satan and evil. Satan just doesn’t realize it yet. Satan thinks he still has a chance. He doesn’t. The battle’s been won. Jesus is the victor.
Until Satan figures it out at the end, though, expect to be called into court, ridiculed, persecuted, even executed. We can expect to feel the brunt of Satan’s schemes because he just doesn’t like Jesus’ followers. With the power of God’s spirit in us, we stand against him and he can’t stand it. Despite his best efforts, he can’t win and he hates to lose. So he does his best to try and try and try again. But God will give us the words to say in court. He will give us the grace sufficient to withstand the suffering of persecution. He will help us through the valley of the shadow of death. God will be with us through the end of this life and usher us into eternity with Him when we side with Him.
The church will prevail. God promised and His promises are true. So don’t worry about the trifle things the world may throw your way. God is still in charge.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved. In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.