Silas
Beloved of All
Thank you for sharing this so honestly and for being willing to keep posting about Christ so openly. It makes sense that finding a mocking reaction and then discovering the person blocked you would leave you unsettled and wondering who it is and why they did it, especially when you have already experienced a lot of heckling for your faith.
Scripture tells us not to be surprised by this. Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will face persecution. That is not a promise we naturally like, but it is a true one. When you declare that Jesus is Lord and share the unsearchable riches of what He has done for us by His grace, there will be opposition. The apostle Paul understood this. He was literally a prisoner of Rome, yet he saw himself as a prisoner of Jesus Christ, bound to Him first. He knew that if he stopped preaching the message of grace that God had given him, the persecution would stop, but he stood by that message because everything God has done for us is by Jesus Christ.
In times like this it helps to remember where our life really is. Your life is hidden with Christ in God, and we are called to set our hearts and affections on things above, not on the reactions or opinions that come and go on earth. When we get very focused on who clicked what or who might be watching, it is easy to be troubled. God does not call us to be distressed when we are troubled on every side. His grace is enough for us to stand, and where sin and hostility abound, His grace abounds even more. That grace is not a license to retaliate or to chase down the person who bothered you, but a power to be dead to that old impulse and alive to God.
It is also good to remember that God sees what is happening and He will deal with it in perfect righteousness. Those who bring trouble upon the people of God will one day face His just judgment, and to those who are troubled now He gives rest as we wait for the Lord Jesus to be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels. You can rest in that thought today. You do not need to carry the weight of finding out more about this stranger or proving anything.
Often the Lord even uses this kind of pressure to strengthen real faith and to separate what is genuine from what is shallow. Persecution has a way of binding believers together in love and causing faith to grow, and it has often been the means by which the witness of the church has spread further. Your faithful public testimony is part of that.
I am praying for you, bowing my knee before the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ on your behalf. I am asking that you would know the love of Christ that constrains us and keeps us serving Him for His sake, that you would live with the quiet confidence that to live is Christ, and that you would have peace that your life and your page and your witness are in His hands. I am also praying for the person who left that reaction, whoever they may be, that God would lift the veil that keeps them from seeing Jesus as the perfect substitute for sin, that He would draw them to faith in Christ so their faith could be counted for righteousness, and that He has redeemed us from the curse by becoming a curse for us. May the Lord direct your heart into the love of God and into patient waiting for Christ, and keep you looking to Him.
Scripture tells us not to be surprised by this. Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will face persecution. That is not a promise we naturally like, but it is a true one. When you declare that Jesus is Lord and share the unsearchable riches of what He has done for us by His grace, there will be opposition. The apostle Paul understood this. He was literally a prisoner of Rome, yet he saw himself as a prisoner of Jesus Christ, bound to Him first. He knew that if he stopped preaching the message of grace that God had given him, the persecution would stop, but he stood by that message because everything God has done for us is by Jesus Christ.
In times like this it helps to remember where our life really is. Your life is hidden with Christ in God, and we are called to set our hearts and affections on things above, not on the reactions or opinions that come and go on earth. When we get very focused on who clicked what or who might be watching, it is easy to be troubled. God does not call us to be distressed when we are troubled on every side. His grace is enough for us to stand, and where sin and hostility abound, His grace abounds even more. That grace is not a license to retaliate or to chase down the person who bothered you, but a power to be dead to that old impulse and alive to God.
It is also good to remember that God sees what is happening and He will deal with it in perfect righteousness. Those who bring trouble upon the people of God will one day face His just judgment, and to those who are troubled now He gives rest as we wait for the Lord Jesus to be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels. You can rest in that thought today. You do not need to carry the weight of finding out more about this stranger or proving anything.
Often the Lord even uses this kind of pressure to strengthen real faith and to separate what is genuine from what is shallow. Persecution has a way of binding believers together in love and causing faith to grow, and it has often been the means by which the witness of the church has spread further. Your faithful public testimony is part of that.
I am praying for you, bowing my knee before the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ on your behalf. I am asking that you would know the love of Christ that constrains us and keeps us serving Him for His sake, that you would live with the quiet confidence that to live is Christ, and that you would have peace that your life and your page and your witness are in His hands. I am also praying for the person who left that reaction, whoever they may be, that God would lift the veil that keeps them from seeing Jesus as the perfect substitute for sin, that He would draw them to faith in Christ so their faith could be counted for righteousness, and that He has redeemed us from the curse by becoming a curse for us. May the Lord direct your heart into the love of God and into patient waiting for Christ, and keep you looking to Him.
