249,843

As a blood bought adopted child of the Lord God Almighty I write these words with a sad, yet joyful heart.  You may be thinking, well that’s quite silly.  How do I have joy in my heart and very sad tears in my eyes?  The number 249,843 is the amount of people living  in restricted, Anti-Christian nations where owning a Bible could mean death.  They don’t care!  Each one of these brothers/sisters  KNOWS Jesus Christ as Savior and LORD– yet want to know more!  Each one has personally asked for a Bible in his or her own language.

Sometimes I think the so-called church here in this supposed civilized nation is clueless about what it means to know Christ and the fellowship of His sufferings (Philippians 3:10).  Far too many church goers/christians take the joy of owning God’s Word lightly.  Just ask someone you know if they read and studied their Bible yesterday, in a quiet place (such as the prayer closet in scripture) seeking wisdom from God?  That’s all I want to say.

Saul of Tarsus was an arrogant, wealthy and famous Roman soldier who persecuted the church with delight.  However after his meeting Christ and conversion (see Acts 8-10), Paul was one of the early churches greatest ambassadors for the message of the Gospel of salvation through Christ.  It is speculated that during his imprisonment in Rome he wrote this letter to the church he established in Philippi.  In Philippians 3:7-11 he writes:

7 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;  11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Charles Spurgeon said : Never did the church so much prosper and so truly thrive as when she was baptized in the blood. The ship of the church never sails so gloriously along as when the bloody spray of her martyrs falls on her deck. We must suffer and we must die, if we are ever to conquer this world for Christ.

My point is this:  PICK UP THE WORD– as commanded; taught; exhorted in the Holy Scriptures.  We must, more now than ever, make sure our faith is secure in the Word.  There are too many other forms of media: books, music, movies,television speaking and teaching words of heresy and apostasy.  You will never know the Truth, until you study the Truth.  The 249,843 people begging for a Bible want to know the Truth no matter what the cost!  Are you willing to count the cost?  ♥ Streim