In his humiliation he [Jesus] was deprived of
justice. Acts 8:33a
Christians experiencing persecution are following in the
footsteps of their master, Jesus. In Acts chapter eight, Philip revealed to the
Ethiopian eunuch that the passage from Isaiah 53 he
was reading referred to Jesus who indeed was deprived of justice. Today in the
Western world, we would describe His trial before crucifixion as occurring in a
“kangaroo court!”
If disinformation about any group, including Christians, is
disseminated long enough, no one will help when that group or person is
discriminated against. Discrimination relegates Christians to second-class
citizenship with inferior legal, social, political and economic status. Once
discrimination takes place, no one will intervene when the mistreatment comes.
Examples of such injustice against Christians abound around
the world: ID cards in a country where Christianity is an unacceptable entry in
the religion column; daughters abducted because they are Christians; expulsion
from the community just because they are evangelicals.
Christians in Pakistan are a small minority among a large
Muslim majority and often face such discrimination. The problem is compounded
by the fact that many Christians are illiterate and poor. One Christian teacher
at a center training Christian women recently said, “We do face discrimination
because we live in the midst of people who don’t want us to move forward;
people who keep trying to push us down so that we will always be in slavery.”
But there is one repeated scene of injustice against
Christians that occurs in Pakistan which brings me to tears which involves
young Christian girls. As a father of two daughters and having six
granddaughters, I shudder every time I read news reports that describe
Christian family injustice in this land. The stories usually work out this way:
Muslim women must marry Muslim men but Muslim men are
allowed to marry any woman they wish with the proviso that any children must be
raised as Muslim. Consequently in Pakistan there are Muslim men who often
desire some of the very beautiful young Christian girls in the community but
realize there is no way their Christian families will agree to marriage. So
these men resort to abduction.
The Christian father’s only option is to go to court where
the judge—usually a Muslim—hears the case and pronounces to the Christian
father, “Your daughter voluntarily converted to Islam and voluntarily married
this Muslim man so you are to have no more contact with her. One of the most
recent cases involved two young Christian sisters aged thirteen and ten. In
this case, the judge allowed the ten-year-old to return home to her family but
not the thirteen-year-old.
Safwan, a secret believer in Algeria, found a Christian
pamphlet between the paperwork given him at work and started reading it. Upon
discovering him reading the pamphlet, his boss reported him to the police.
Later that night the police visited him and searched his entire home. They
found Christian CD’s, several Christian movies and a New Testament. “It was
clear to them that I had become a Christian. My boss fired me.”
RESPONSE: Today I will work toward justice for
everyone in my own country and around the world.
PRAYER: Lord, be with those experiencing
discrimination today because they love and serve You.
Standing Strong Through The Storm (SSTS), a
daily devotional message by SSTS author Paul Estabrooks. © 2011 Open Doors
International. Used by permission.
Originally Posted HERE
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