“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me." -Matthew 5:11
"Nura" was born and raised in the Middle East, and lived a life of relative comfort with her husband and their young son.
Then after hearing about Jesus, she made the decision to follow him.
Her husband immediately forbade her from reading a Bible, and certainly from going to the small church meetings she'd been attending. He even told her that if she did not give up Christianity, he would kill her.
Nura had nowhere to go – her friends had abandoned her, and her only option was to either renounce her faith, or take her child and leave to preserve her life.
So she chose to leave.
Stories like Nura's are happening every day in this part of the world – and constitute some of the most sinister and personal forms of persecution, social persecution.
Today, Nura's life is filled with challenges because of her faith in Jesus. But she wouldn't trade her new family of believers – or the peace Jesus has given her – for the world.
Pray for the socially persecuted...
- Pray for encouragement for believers like Nura who follow Jesus boldly despite social pressures to turn back to their old lives.
- Pray that God would strengthen the body of Christ in areas where social persecution is prevalent, so that those who turn to Jesus could quickly find Christian community.
- Pray for the persecutors of people like Nura, that Jesus would soften their hearts to Christians and the gospel message.