All resources in the category "Persecution and martyrdom"

In light of the Day of the LORD being near, patient, enduring faith in God, His Messiah, and the restoration of all things is the foundation of the church's mission in this age. The church is called to faithfully witness to Jesus and the judgment to come, which is essentially amnestic in nature, as we represent the kindness and longsuffering of the Lord towards the wicked.

This amnestic witness is best typified in martyrdom, which the church must embrace wholeheartedly at the end of the age as wickedness comes to its fullest expression. The scriptures plainly declare that...

In light of the Day of the LORD being near, patient, enduring faith in God, His Messiah, and the restoration of all things is the foundation of the church's mission in this age. The church is also called to faithfully witness to Jesus and the judgment to come, which is essentially amnestic in nature, as we represent the kindness and longsuffering of the Lord towards the wicked.

This amnestic witness is best typified in martyrdom, which the church must embrace wholeheartedly at the end of the age as wickedness comes to its fullest expression. The scriptures plainly declare that...

The call to "follow" Jesus has been severely watered down through the passing centuries. In today's culture, "following Jesus" can simply mean upholding certain moral standards or having zeal for certain causes. In modernity, the gospel has turned into a message self-affirmation for the glory of man, not self-denial for the glory of Jesus.

In this teaching, Stephen Venable walks through each phrase of Jesus' call to discipleship in Luke 9, describing the normal lifestyle of the believer - self-denial, suffering, yet filled with unspeakable joy for the glory of Jesus.

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In my last post of this short series, I briefly wrote about what it means to “deny ourselves” and how it specifically relates to obedience, the way that God defines how we love Him. Jesus’ call to deny ourselves entails a violent, radical resistance to self-promotion, self-preservation, and every expression of self-service in our time, emotions, thoughts, money, and every level of our existence. It requires a reorientation of our entire existence to understanding that we take in...