Could Your Child Stand This Firm?

Resist him, firm in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are being experienced by your brothers in the world. (10) Now the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will personally restore, establish, strengthen, and support you after you have suffered a little. 1Pe 5:9-10

I have spent a few weeks in China, great country, rough place to be a Christian. While we were there half of our group was detained for suspected missionary activity. They actually had to eat a Chinese census map in order to get rid of the evidence. But, after a half a day they were released. They worst that happens to westerners is a fine and deported out of the country. But, for the Chinese they go to work camps and lose property and jobs. So, as we are looking at raising Godly children here at Antioch, I came across this amazing story of the heart and determination of some very young Chinese Christians.

China's constitution allows citizens to believe in God, but does not guarantee the opportunity to put those beliefs into practice. The Open Doors organization reports that recently a group of children made a huge impact on government officials.

According to a Chinese teacher, the children were taken into custody when officials raided a Sunday School meeting. Security Bureau officers confiscated incriminating evidence and herded the children into a van. As the van headed to the police station the children started singing. When they arrived, they marched bravely into the interrogation room still singing, "In the name of Jesus, we have the victory."

The police interrogator threatened the children, telling them they would have to write "I do not believe in Jesus" one hundred times. Instead of cowering under the threats, the children wrote, "I believe in Jesus today. I will believe in Jesus tomorrow. I will believe in Jesus forever."

Officials were not prepared for a strong stand from children, and decided to call the parents into the police station. They told the parents they would release the children only if the parents said they were not Christians. Since many of the parents were not believers, they affirmed they did not believe and took their children home. When one widowed woman came to pick up her twin sons, she refused to deny Jesus.

Officials told her that if she did not deny Jesus, they would not release her sons. She responded by telling the police. "Well, I guess you will just have to keep them because without Jesus, there would be no way for me to take care of them!" Since the frustrated authorities had not expected such strong resistance, they told the woman to take her boys and leave, which she did.

Wow, that last mom blew me away. It seems she thought here children are just as well with the jailers because without Jesus she is incapable of raising them! What if we had that same dependency on Jesus in our lives, then maybe our kids would be able to stand firm like these little amazing believers did?

Resolve to depend absolutely on Christ today in all I do! Pastor Phillip