Pastoral Encouragement – Where is the Safe Space for Christians?

toriuppermanPastoral EncouragementLeave a Comment

Does it seem odd to you that a culture that advocates tolerance, love and acceptance, would also condone and even celebrate an article attacking a Christian School for teaching Christian Doctrine? 
Link to Washington Post Article

Do you find it inconsistent, that the media would consider it newsworthy to report the audacity of the Vice President’s wife to teach art, at a school which requires it’s teachers to sign a statement of faith, and does not consider it newsworthy that the school and church was flooded with “nasty phone calls, letters, emails, obscene packages, and even threats against the church and their students”? 
Link to NY Times Article

Does it bother you that the police and secret service have to be called in to protect a K-8 grade school, because the teachers signed a statement which reads, “I understand that the term ‘marriage’ has only one meaning; the uniting of one man and one woman in a single, exclusive covenant union as delineated in Scripture”? 
Link to Vanity Fair Article

Does the cry for tolerance not apply to Christianity?  Where is the sensitivity training for respecting Christian beliefs and practices?  Do Christians have a safe space in our society, where we are free from “violence, harassment and hate speech”?

If you read your Bibles, you understand that attacks on Christianity are nothing new. 

Jesus said:
Matthew 10:22 “You will be hated by all because of My name…”

Matthew 24:9 “Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name.”

John 15:18-19“If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.”

So Peter warns us:
1 Peter 4:12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you”

There is no safe space for Christians in this temporal world.  Our place of safety is found in Christ, who chose us out of this world.  It’s in Him that we find our peace.

John 16:33 “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

Please be praying for Pastor Jesse Johnson and Immanuel Bible Church and Immanuel Christian School.  You can click HERE to read an article that Jesse wrote in response to the media coverage about their decision to hire Karen Pence, the wife of the Vice President. 

May God grant us all a spirit of courage and faithfulness to His Word.  

In Christ Alone,
Pastor George
Pastor Matt

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