The second Sunday of November is designated by many churches as the “International Day of Prayer and Remembrance for the Persecuted Church.” Tonight I will be attending a prayer meeting for our persecuted brothers and sisters across the globe at Maple Glen Church near our home. More information on the persecuted church can be found at International Christian Concern (www.persecution.org) and Voice of the Martyrs (www.persecution.com).

I had written a lengthy post of reflection on persecution and martyrdom, including good and bad ways the church has responded to its martyrs over its history, but a computer crash sent it into oblivion. So I will take that as a cue to cease from many words and simply invite you to join me this week in praying for our sisters and brothers across the globe who suffer for the sake of Jesus Christ and his Good News. Each day for the next five days I plan to write a short post highlighting a different area of the world where Christians are routinely beaten, tortured, or imprisoned. In some cases, the persecution comes in the form of extreme ostracization, including banning from employment and education. At the extreme, they are murdered (up to 100 million in the 20th century according to some estimates).

On this day of prayer and remembrance, here is a prayer (from the official site of the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church):

‘I love you, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies.’ (Psalm 18:1-3 NIV)

O Lord our deliverer, deliver us from evil.

Sovereign Holy God, we marvel at your work amongst the nations and we trust you. As we bring our requests to you, please forgive our sins, overlook our weaknesses and hear and answer our prayers for the sake of your Kingdom and glory.

We pray today for our brothers and sisters who live with sadness, trauma and fear; and who live with daily hardship, discrimination and persecution because they have taken your name and are Christians in a world that hates Christ.

We bring before you our persecuted brothers and sisters whose lives and security are daily under threat. We bring before you especially those who are imprisoned and those who are branded ‘apostate’ and sentenced to death because they have turned to Jesus.

Lord our deliverer, deliver them from evil.

We bring before you our persecuted brothers and sisters whose lives have been shattered by religious repression, violent religious hatred and jihad, as they now face the daily struggle to maintain faith, hope and grace to forgive, as Satan attacks their hearts and minds.

Lord our deliverer, strengthen their faith and deliver them from evil.

We bring before you those who through ignorance, blindness, demonic interference and sin have set themselves against your Church, and yet are merely sinners in need of the Saviour.

Lord our deliverer, convict them of sin and deliver them from evil.

We bring before you all those who profess Christ and yet are soft, luke-warm, un-caring, un-regenerate, fearful or lazy. Lord, may your Spirit awaken, revive, reform and embolden us all to seek and embrace your call upon our lives as ambassadors for Christ, no matter what the personal cost.

Lord our deliverer, forgive us our sins and deliver us from evil.

We pray to you, the only living God, the sovereign Almighty God for whom nothing is impossible. We ask that you the God of Peace [Hebrews 13:20] will intervene in the conflicts in this world. We especially pray that you will ‘frustrate the ways of the wicked’ [Psalm 146:9] and disrupt, expose, and destroy terror networks and the illegal trade in weapons and ammunition. Put an end to this trade in death; shatter its foundations and strike its roots; disrupt its progress and starve it in the field, for the sake of your Kingdom and glory.

Lord, may your Spirit embolden and compel your Church to preach the whole gospel. May conviction of sin abound, may righteousness spring up, may persecutors of the Church be transformed into preachers of the gospel [Galatians 1:23], may liberty fill the earth so the sower may overtake the reaper [Amos 9:13], and may all who see it rejoice in the Lord.

We thank you for your grace and mercy.

Deliver us from evil O Lord our deliverer,
so we may live to serve you,
for the sake of your kingdom and glory.
In the name of Jesus. AMEN.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 12th, 2006 at 5:18 pm and is filed under Christian Community, MereMission, Missions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.