At the beginning of this year, I started Voice of the Martyrs' Extreme Devotion for my devotional book. It has been great and I thought that I'd make a blog post out of one of them:
The setting is communist Romania, where there is a seven-year drive to eliminate the nations of all superstition. This is where we find Brother Vasile.
Even though the government was cracking down on religion, especially on Christianity, Vasile and his wife opened their doors to hold church meetings in their house. They knew, however, that they could not go undetected for forever.
Soon Brother Vasile learned that one of the church members' homes had been raided and some of his sermons had been confiscated. He also found out that the assistant pastor had become and informant and had betrayed Vasile. He knew the clock was just counting the time until he was arrested.
The time came at 1:00 AM. The police raided their apartment and put Vasile under arrest. Brother Vasile refused to leave peacefully unless he was able to spend several minutes with his wife. He was granted his request and the next several minutes were spent in holding each other, praying, and singing. Vasile was then led off and was not seen for many years.
As the police were loading Vasile into the van, he shouted to his tearful wife, "Give all my love to our son and the pastor who denounced me."
Put yourself in Brother Vasile's shoes. How would you have handled being betrayed by someone that had helped in you in the ministry and who you had trusted? Be honest with yourself, would you have been able to love that person in the same Christ-like way?
"And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors." (Matthew 6:12, ESV)
2 comments:
Hi, I'm Lydia. I was the first to follow your blog and though I have never before commented I've been blessed and challenged many times by your posts. I recently made a video called "The Faithful" and posted it on my blog. You might like it.
God has really opened my eyes to so many things about our lost and fallen world recently I hardly know where to begin. I pray I might have a part in His plan and I want you to know I think what you do on Most Welcome Cross is awesome. I read Safely Home as well and it's message is wonderful. I think everyone should read it.
Your sister in Christ, Lydia
Praise God! I watched the video and was really encouraged. Thanks for posting it. I'm glad you have been blessed by MWC, may all the glory go to Jesus.
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