Burning with the love of Jesus

It was what the Dutch Jesuit scholar and mystic Henri Nouwen once told a gathering of Baptist ministers: "Ministry is the least important thing. You cannot not minister if you are in communion with God and live in community. A lot of people are always concerned about: 'How can I help people? Or help the youth to come to Christ? Or preach well?' But these are all basically non-issues. If you are burning with the love of Jesus, don't worry: everyone will know. They will say, 'I want to get close to this person who is so full of  God.'"

It is possible and the Suffering Church, by example, proves to us that it its indeed possible to lose everything...to suffer everything...to endure everything...yet maintain a joyful spirit and heart of love for the Lord.

So often our major shortcoming is simply to doubt that we could go through those experiences and come out of them as refined and triumphant.  Jesus never promised that our life would be easy - just fulfilling.  He never promised that things would be fair - only that He would be just. 

“It is more difficult to be a Christian in the USA than in Iran. There you are either a Christian or not!” - Iranian Christian leader Luke Yagnazar “We have physical persecution but you have materialism. Your lot is harder because we know what we are spiritually fighting. Many times you don’t.” - Pastor Samuel Lamb in southern China.

Our first semester passed quickly. Penina gave birth to our son, Dawaudi Babumba. In the fall I returned to my studies. It was then, in my second year, that I noticed the change that had come into my life. In Uganda, Penina and I read the Bible for hope and life. We read to hear God’s promises, to hear His commands and obey them. There had been no time for argument and no time for religious discrepancies or doubts.

Now, in the security of a new life and with the reality of death fading from mind, I found myself reading Scripture to analyze texts and speculate about meaning. I came to enjoy abstract theological discussions with my fellow students and, while these discussions were intellectually refreshing, it wasn’t long before our fellowship revolved around ideas rather than the work of God in our lives. It was not the blood of Jesus Christ that gave us unity, but our agreement on doctrinal issues. We came together not for confession and forgiveness but for debate.

The biggest change came to my prayer life. In Uganda I had prayed with a deep sense of urgency. I refused to leave my knees until I was certain I had been in the presence of the resurrected Christ. It was not just the gift I needed. I needed to see the Giver. I needed to know that the God of orphans and widows, the God of the helpless, heard my prayers. Now, after a year in Philadelphia, the urgency was gone. When I prayed publicly I was more concerned to be theologically correct than to be in God’s presence. Even in private my prayers were no longer the helpless cries of a child. They were spiritual tranquilizers, thoughts that made no contact with anything outside themselves. More and more I found myself coming to God with vague requests for gifts I did not expect. - Uganda pastor, Kefa Sempangi

However, in my work with SAT-7 Canada, we see the Church in many middle eastern countries and in North Africa as evidence the persecution does not guarantee church unity, growth or revival.  Then also we see the Church in South Korea at the other end of the spectrum for they are an example of a free country where the church is experiencing significant growth and revival.

 “It is not persecution itself but the lessons learned under persecution that make and keep the church and an individual believer strong in the Lord…what makes the difference is how we respond to persecution and how we respond to freedom.” Pastor Paul Negrut

May we be willing to learn and act accordingly and be prepared.

http://youtu.be/-X-9zI9PFN8

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Super-victors

Paul said this is the reason that “in all these things we are more than conquerors.” We are super-victors with a joy that comes from experiencing the very things which look as if they are going to overwhelm us.
Huge waves that would frighten an ordinary swimmer produce a tremendous thrill for the surfer who has ridden them. Let’s apply that to our own circumstances. The things we try to avoid and fight against— tribulation, suffering, and persecution— are the very things that produce abundant joy in us. “We are more than conquerors through Him” “in all these things”; not in spite of them, but in the midst of them. - Oswald Chambers

The lesson of Job is how sometimes, inexplicable tragedy happens. There's a lot we don't know - - we can't tell God how to run his universe! When the sufferer has a personal encounter with God, there are no more questions. Corrie Ten Boom said, "Now I know from experience that Jesus' light is stronger than the deepest darkness. There is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still."

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Practising our faith

 

Wherever Christians are restricted in practising their faith, the experience of meeting corporately for worship seems to have much more intensity and meaning.  After - or sometimes before - a long hard day of work in an anti-spiritual environment, they are most desirous of meeting with the family of God to express their love, adoration and praise to their Lord.

"God of love, help us to remember that Christ has no body now on earth but ours, no hands but ours, no feet but ours.
Ours are the eyes to see the needs of the world. Ours are the hands with which to bless everyone now. Ours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good". - Teresa of Avila

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Fellowship

Read this great story of a gentleman's visit to a church in Saudi Arabia - http://www.crosswalk.com/devotionals/standing-strong-through-the-storm/standing-strong-through-the-storm-april-22.html

The reason for believers taking this risk is wrapped up in the significant word - encouragement. 

Some try to use the word - serving - as a contemporary synonym for this because it is about generously responding to other people's needs - thus encouraging them.  However, encouragement has a subtle nuance that goes beyond the concept and motivation of serving others.

Encouragement, as fellowship, requires time spent together.  It's the act of inspiring others with renewed courage, spirit or hope.  In humility, each of us must come to the point where we acknowledge we need massive doses of it regularly.

“One of the highest of human duties is the duty of encouragement…It is easy to laugh
at men’s ideals; it is easy to pour cold water on their enthusiasm; it is easy to discourage others. The world is full  of discouragers.

We have a Christian duty to encourage one another. Many times a word of praise
or thanks or appreciation or cheer has kept a man on his feet. Blessed is the
man who speaks such a word.”
–The Letter to the Hebrews, William Barclay

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Witnessing

Manuel was an effective evangelist among the mountain Quechua people in Peru. One day some Shining Path guerrillas intercepted him on the trail and ordered him to stop going to the mountains; stop handing out Bibles, cassettes and other Christian materials; and stop preaching about Jesus. They threatened his life.

Some weeks later Manuel’s dead body was found on the trail. His feet, hands and tongue had been cut off. With a knife they carved on his torso the message in Spanish, “We told you to stop!” The chopped body parts completed the message, “...visiting the villages; distributing Bibles; preaching about Jesus!”

There was a memorial service for Manuel attended by many believers. An evangelist preached the memorial service message and challenged young people to come forward and take Manuel’s place. Ten young people made the commitment. An elder standing at the side asked, “But young people. What if the same thing happens to you as happened to Manuel?”

One of the youths cried out, “If we die, a thousand will spring up and take our place!”


This from China --

"…in the provinces, believers are still fined, imprisoned, and tortured; local regulations still prohibit unofficial church gatherings", One lady was held for 110 days in captivity. She was hung upside down and beaten with electrical cords. Others with her were beaten with wire from the waist down.

Their crime was meeting with an evangelist. Their testimony was, "...that God's presence was so tangible during the torture that, in fact, she felt joyful. 'Because of these afflictions, we loved the souls of China more...and we prayed for those who were torturing us... We go out ready to preach the gospel, ready to go to jail, and ready to die for Jesus' sake." (CHRISTIANITY TODAY, May 16, 1994, pp. 33-34).

"It is interesting to note that the underground church in China is apolitical! They pray for their leaders but maintain a careful independence...more than a few believers [in America] trade in their Christian birthright for a mess of earthy pottage. We must continually ask ourselves: Is our first aim to change our government or to see lives in and out of government changed for Christ?” Ibid.

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Pray Long

 Peter Wagner says, "The central, foundational activity for spiritual warfare is prayer. In one sense prayer is a weapon of warfare, and in another sense it is the medium through which all of the other weapons are utilised." Without prayer we will live defeated Christian lives. That is why Paul exhorts us in Ephesians 6:18, to put on the whole armour of God, "praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit…."

Pastor Ha's church in Vietnam grew from twenty-nine to over 5,000 in just a few years during the communist regime in the late 1970's. When asked the secret of this phenomenal church growth, Pastor Ha replied, "I have a very simple theology. When you have problems, pray! When you have more problems, pray more!" Every morning this church had a well-attended prayer meeting at six A.M. And the church grew and grew. Although they were constantly living under pressure, there was one Scripture text chosen for the wall of their sanctuary, "In everything give thanks."

And yet after his years of imprisonment, Pastor Ha said, “When I had my freedom, I worked with prayer sometimes in the background. In prison, I discovered that prayer is everything. It's like a pilot using a checklist before he takes off. If he skips the first item, many lives might be in danger. The first item on our checklist should always be prayer. If we skip it, the whole mission is in jeopardy.”


Vietnamese Pastor Cuong also spent over six years in prison. He says this about prayer:

“In my work I was so busy I had no time to pray. But in prison, I was thankful to God that He gave me time for prayer. I had about six hours of prayer every day. I had time to recall every member of my congregation to pray for them. Before that, although I served the church, I didn't have enough time to pray for them. I learned about the real presence of God in prayer there. When you kneel down and pray wholeheartedly with the Lord, you feel His answer right there.”

Even in the difficult conditions of imprisonment, Irina Ratushinskaya continued to write poetry, scratching out verses on a bar of soap and committing them to memory before washing them away. Later she said that writing helped her to survive her ordeal. While still at home in Kiev following her release, she was interviewed over the air by Chicago radio station WBEZ. Asked if she would consent to read one of her poems, she replied: "I will read a poem which I wrote already in freedom . It is dedicated to all those who thought and remembered about my fellow prisoners or about me." The following is a literal translation of the poem, submitted by one of our readers.

Believe me, so it happened often:
In solitary confinement, on a wintry night
Suddenly an embrace of warmth and happiness,
And a note of low would sound.
And then I sleeplessly know,
Leaning against the ice cold wall-
Now, now they are remembering me,
They are begging the Lord for me.
My dear ones, thank you
All, who remembered and believed in us
In the cruelest prison hour.
We, surely, could not have
Gone through all from end to end,
Not bowing our head, not faltering,
Without your lofty hearts
Illumining our way.

“I am a part of the fellowship of the unashamed. I have Holy Spirit power. The dye has been cast. I have stepped over the line. I am a disciple of HIS. I won’t look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still. My past is redeemed! I’m finished with low living, sight walking, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tamed visions, mundane talking, and dwarfed goals! I don’t have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded, or rewarded. I now live by faith, lean on His presence, walk by patience, lift by prayer, and labor by power! My faith is set. My gait is fast. My goal is heaven. My road is narrow. My companions few. My Guide reliable! My mission clear! I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, turned back, or delayed! I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of the adversary, or negotiate at the table of the enemy! I won’t give up, shut up, let up until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up, paid up, preached up for the cause of Christ! I am a disciple of Jesus! I must go until He comes, give until I drop, preach until all know, and work until He stops me. And when He comes for His own, He will have NO problems recognizing me. My banner will be clear!” --  this text was found on a scrap of paper in the home of an African pastor shortly after he was martyred.


At the beginning of 1935, Rees Howell had a new burden to pray for world missions. He shared this with staff and friends at SIM and they agreed to intercede for any nation and country, as well a missionaries, as the Lord indicated.


With the rise of Hitler and Mussolini, Rees and his intercessors were called to ‘stand in the gap’ in prayer; as prayer warriors they were to have no more claim on their lives, time or possessions than if they had been drafted into the forces. Particular prayer was made for Ethiopia when Mussolini invaded. Rees experienced a great trial of faith when Addis Ababa fell, but the outcome of their intercession was seen when in later years S I M missionaries returned to Wallamo Province, where they had anxiously left 48 young believers, to find a church of 10,000 Christians.


Two sisters in southern China came to Christ in a house church meeting. Twenty months later a friend from Hong Kong visited them and asked what they had been doing since their conversion. "Starting home meetings," was their timid response.
"How many home meetings?"
"Only thirty," was their halting reply.
"How many attend your meetings?" was the next nonchalant question.
"Well, at the smallest one about two hundred and eighty!"
Now the questioner was totally involved and quickly continued,
"How many attend your largest meeting?"
"Not even 5000, only about four thousand nine hundred!"
The Hong Kong Christian was flabbergasted. And in his excitement quickly asked, “How do you ladies—both new Christians—know what to do?"
They simply replied, “We pray. And after we pray, the Holy Spirit tells us what to do!”






Paul Youngi Cho, of South Korea, has one of the world's largest churches, with over one million members. When asked about the secret of his success, he says, "I pray, and I obey." His whole ministry is marked with prayer. They have a whole mountain for prayer, not just a room in the church. It is called Prayer Mountain. The mountain is covered with small caves where people from the church will go and hide themselves to pray for days at a time.

Every morning, Cho prays for five hours before starting any other work in the church. Many have asked him how he can find time to pray that much. He answers, "You don't understand. If I don't pray for five hours, I don't have enough time to do everything. But when I do, then God does everything I need."

James declares that prayer is powerful and effective" (James 5:16) John assures us that "God hears and answers" (1 John 5: 15). In the book of Acts there are 36 references to the church growing. Fifty-eight percent [i.e. 21 of those instances) are within the context of prayer. We would all love to see growth in every church in the world like it was at Pentecost and immediately thereafter. The key to what happened is found in Acts l:14 when it says: "They were all joined together constantly in prayer. They were all joined together - one mind, one purpose, one accord. That is the prerequisite for effectiveness. Then, they were all joined together constantly in prayer. The word used there means to be "busily engaged in, to be devoted to, to persist in adhering to a thing, to intently attend to it." And it is in the form of a present participle. It means that the practice was continued ceaselessly. The same word is used in Acts 2:42: "They devoted themselves ...to prayer." Over in Colossians 4:2 Paul uses the same word again in the imperative form "Devote yourselves to prayer. Most significant expansion movements of the church through its history took up that imperative.

Pastor Cho from South Korea also shares this story - "The place where I went to plant my church - there were already shrines, and the priests from the shrines tried to intimidate me. They tried to burn up the tent churches. So to combat this, I spent five hours every day praying. But now a days I usually spend three hours every day praying, and if I don't keep praying regularly in such a way then I can't maintain the fellowship with the Holy Spirit. I believe ministers cannot maintain their ministries without the anointing of the Holy Spirit. For me, that means three hours a day to maintain my intimacy with the Holy Spirit."

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We need your prayers...

"Alexander was on his first research trip to Cuba for Open Doors. He asked a Cuban pastor what his needs were. He expected the response to itemize the many material needs that the churches in Cuba obviously lacked.    
“The first thing we need is your prayers,” he replied, “to know the Body of Christ is with us.”  Then he went on to list their tremendous need for Bibles, teaching aids, Sunday School materials and printing supplies. Then he concluded with the statement that they could use anything and everything.   
“If you send us just a bar of soap, we’ll be grateful,” he confessed. “We'll praise God for it!”   
Alexander says, “I felt a big lump in my throat as I thought of all the Bibles, literature and freedoms I enjoyed. Yet even with all my blessings, my testimony was not as strong. So I struggled to articulate my feelings. ‘Pastor,’ I said, ‘I can only begin to sense and imagine the difficulties you have encountered.’”   
The pastor’s eyes became misty and he softly responded, “Oh yes brother, we have been through a most difficult twenty-five years. Yet we don’t fear persecution. As a matter of fact, we welcome it because it purifies us!”

 There is a story called, The Butterfly.  It implies a certain process that turns us into what we need to be so that we can do the things we need to do. 

Keith Price, "Affliction is a great watershed. It either drives us to God or from Him. Which course we take likely depends more on our existing relationship with God than any other factor. I have come to the conviction that my closeness to God is more precisely measured by my capacity for suffering than it is by my capacity for joy."

 "We do not want suffering; we want success. We identify not with
those who are low and hurt but with those who are high and
healthy. We don't like lepers or losers very well; we prefer
climbers and comers. For Christians, the temptation to be
conformed to this world is desperately sweet and strong. Yet, says
the apostle Paul, we are children of God if we suffer with Christ. ...
God does not give his hardest assignments to his weakest children." -- Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.

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Life's Journey

The most frequently used verbal imagery of life's journey is that of being a pilgrim.

As a pilgrim, it becomes easier to hold earthly things very lightly.

I heard this definition of a pilgrim recently -

"An intense narrowing of all our interests on earth, and an immense broadening of all our interests in God."

 "The world's way to responding to intimations of decay is to engage equally in idiot hopes and idiot despair. On the one hand, some new policy or discovery is confidently expected to put everything to rights- a new fuel, a new drug, detente, world government. On the other hand, some disaster is as confidently expected to prove our undoing- capitalism will break down, fuel will run out, plutonium will lay us low, atomic waste will kill us off. Overpopulation will suffocate us or alternatively a declining birth rate will put us more at the mercy of our enemies. In Christian terms, such hopes and fears are equally beside the point, for as Christians we know that here we have no continuing city, that crowns roll in the dust and every earthly kingdom must sometimes flounder whereas we acknowledge a king men did not crown and cannot dethrone, as we are citizens of a city of God they did not build and cannot destroy. Thus the apostle wrote to the Christians in Rome, living in a society as depraved and as dissolute as ours, their games like our television specialized in spectacles of violence and eroticism. Paul exhorted them to be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in God's work, to concern themselves with the things that are unseen. For the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal. It was in the breakdown of Rome that Christendom was born. Now in the breakdown of Christendom, there are the same requirements and the same possibilities to eschew the fantasy of a disintegrating world and to seek the reality of what is not seen and eternal- the reality of Christ." --  Malcolm Muggeridge

There is a gospel song  titled "I can't feel at home in this world any more" - the first verse goes like this...

This world is not my home I'm just passing through
my treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue
the angels beckon me from Heaven's open door
and I can't feel at home in this world anymore

 Pilgrims who pass through territory en route to their permanent home do not drive in their stakes too deeply.  They know they are leaving in the morning.

Unfortunately, instead of pilgrims with a clear vision of our final destiny, we are being labelled earth-bound tourists searching for the latest spiritual high.

Pastor Allen Yuan in China was 82 years old and still serving - he did not retire because he could not find any reference to retirement in the Bible - this is his quick story --

Chinese policy changed. Because of prison overcrowding, the government decided to release Christian leaders who had spent two decades in jail. Allen was paroled and told he must not preach. But he continued to spread the gospel from his own home. He taped sermons and distributed them. He was still working for Christ in his late eighties. "As we live each day, we want to work for Him [Jesus] until He returns, as we know He is coming soon. If He comes today, I am fully prepared, as everybody must give an account."

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Enjoying the Trip

"Joy, which is the small publicity of the pagan," said Chesterton, "is the gigantic secret of the Christian."

"I want to bring this to a point. Remember, dear friend, what we need is to come to decision and
action. There are in Scripture two very different sorts of Christians. The Bible speaks in Romans,
Corinthians and Galatians about yielding to the flesh; and that is the life of tens of thousands of
believers. All their lack of joy in the Holy Ghost, and their lack of the liberty He gives, is just
owing to the flesh. The Spirit is within them, but the flesh rules the life. To be led by the Spirit of
God is what they need. Would God that I could make every child of His realize what it means
that the everlasting God has given His dear Son, Christ Jesus, to watch over you every day, and
that what you have to do is to trust; and that the work of the Holy Spirit is to enable you. every
moment to remember Jesus, and to trust Him! The Spirit has come to keep the link with Him
unbroken every moment. Praise God for the Holy Ghost! We are so accustomed to think of the
Holy Spirit as a luxury, for special times, or for special ministers and men. But the Holy Spirit is
necessary for every believer, every moment of the day. Praise God you have Him, and that He
gives you the full experience of the deliverance in Christ, as He makes you free from the power
of sin."

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I am always with you

Gul Masih was a Christian in Pakistan and was condemned to hang on a charge of blasphemy.  In prison he wrote this as a response to a Canadian woman:

"First of all, I am thankful to you that you have encouraged me. My Lord has come to me twice in my prison cell. One day, I was sitting in my cell thinking about this injustice in a sad and hopeless mood. Suddenly the cell filled with light and my body trembled. I saw my Lord. Four days after this, my Jesus came again and overshadowed me by raising His hands & blessing me. From that day on, I have been happy & at peace. My Lord is with me in Jail. He doesn't leave me alone. We are five members in our family. We have a great love for each other. I am very grateful to my Lord. He has fulfilled all my needs in the best possible way. I am also thankful to you and my other brothers & sisters who have supported me. I hope that by the grace of God we will see one another. Let us not forget the power of prayer."

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Power in Chains

The apostle Paul commented on a few occasions that being in chains was not necessarily a bad thing.

That's because God can turn anything into good - everyone in that prison system, including the palace guard learned that Paul was in prison because of his love for Christ.

More importantly, from Paul's perspective, he saw a change in the Christians.  It seemed that his chains inspired them to speak God's Word more courageously and fearlessly than before.

Here is a testimony reflecting some of this from Pastor Matta Boush in Sudan --

However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace. Acts 20:24

In a Sudan prison, Pastor Matta Boush was depressed as he faced 30 years on false charges. A visit from an Irish Catholic sister helped change his outlook. There were others in prison, she said, whose cases were far worse than his. She told him never to ask himself why he was there, but instead to ask for what purpose he was there. From that point Matta Boush began to minister to his fellow prisoners.

He began prayer meetings for non-Muslims and numbers grew quickly. One event at the prison made an especially strong impact. A prisoner, just prior to his execution, rather than being fearful, was calm and gave his testimony. He said he was not afraid to die because he knew he would go to heaven. This made such an impression that some of the Muslim guards became Christians.

He was transferred to another prison in the city of El-Obeid. Some Muslims objected to his ministry and prayer meetings so he was placed in solitary confinement for several months. Away from his God-given work and with too much time to think, depression overtook him again. But the encouragement of friends helped him through the hard times. Returning to the general prison population, he helped lead between 150 and 200 people to Christ.

Later Matta Boush was transferred to El-Khobar prison in Khartoum. There he was able to help build a prison chapel as well as continuing his ministry. In the next ten months, 200 people came to the Lord.

His sudden release indicated that the person ordering it had great authority. As a free man, he contacted churches and visited Nuba refugee camps. He was reunited with his three daughters. His wife, however, had married a Muslim man.

He began providing pastoral care for nine regional churches. He was faithful in sharing the Lord both in and out of prison. No sacrifice was too great to accomplish the goal.

An Open Doors-Africa co-worker named Solomon was assigned to find out if there were many Christians in prison or labor camps in Mozambique during the communist regime there. While researching, he was arrested himself:

“In prison, all my possessions, including my Bible were taken from me. Then I was subjected to a cross-examination for six hours, after which I was thrown into a cell, exhausted. I had to sleep on a concrete floor. I did not even get a blanket…
“Knowing that my heavenly father would never forsake me, I directed all my attention to my fellow-prisoners. Although I still had to sleep on the floor and was harassed by malaria, bugs and gnawing hunger, I tried to talk about my faith as much as possible…
“I had the opportunity to preach to my companions. I prayed for the sick and the Lord heard my prayers and healed them. That was of great support to them and during my stay in prison, I led fifteen people to the Lord.
“Unexpectedly, I found out that there were more Christians in prison. Now it became clear to me why I had to be arrested. In the first place, to bring the message of salvation to the lost ones in prison. And secondly, to strengthen my fellow Christians."

 Check out this prayer for generosity from Ignatius of Loyola --

Lord, teach me to be generous.
Teach me to serve you as you deserve;
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labor and not to ask for reward,
save that of knowing that I do your will.

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Willingness to Serve

Why are chains so powerful? Because of what God does for Christians in prison. Here's a story out of Nepal, told by Tirtha Thapa, general secretary for the National Churches Fellowship, about the time he visited some Christians in chains.

"As I entered, the light was dim and it was difficult to see. I could make out shapes in one corner of the cell, huddled together against the cold, on the bare concrete floor. As my eyes adjusted, the battered faces of the men came into focus. They were bound together with wire that pierced their hands and wound around their limbs, causing intense pain. They were miserable looking creatures. I had met them before, on a previous visit, but in their present condition I didn't recognize them. But they recognized me. "Jaya mashi!" they shouted. "Victory of the Messiah!... Don't worry, we're fine, singing the song of the Lord. Tell our brothers and sisters we're happy here in police custody."

If Christ be God...

Check out these sayings from C.T. Studd - http://churchages.com/en/missions/ct-studd/

One of them is -

"If Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him."

There are a lot of quotes from this missionary that challenged us to give wholehearted service for God.  That was simply the case because of Jesus' love and example for us.  We then prove our love for Him as faithful bond servants - wherever we are placed...and His reward is His personal presence with us always.

If you want to read an incredible story of a young blind man, Zia Nodrat, who believed this with his life, read it here - http://www.answering-islam.org/Testimonies/zia.html

Here is one of his quotes when he was told that he would be killed because of his apostasy from Islam --

"I have counted the cost and am willing to die for the Messiah, since He has already died on the cross for me."

 

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