Will I stand For Christ?

Will I stand for Christ? I just listened to this sermon from James MacDonald on Walk in the Word (www.walkintheword.com) and that is the question he kept asking. In the midst of the trial, the persecution, the suffering. . . "Will I stand For Christ?"

How amazing that I should listen to this after just reading an article on CNN about a Pakistani woman who was sentenced to death after insulting Islam and the prophet Muhammad. She is a Christian woman whose was arrested, thrown in jail for over a year, and now sentenced to death for denying Muhammad. She has appealed her death sentence but a decision by the court could be months.

According to CNN, "The town cleric, who made the initial complaint against Bibi, called her death sentence one of the happiest moments of his life. "Tears of joy poured from my eyes," Qari Salim told CNN." CNN ARTICLE HERE Outraged and heartbroken is how I feel after watching her daughters cry for their mother who committed no crime yet stood for Christ in denying Muhammad.

I am ahasmed to say I hesitated to write this post wondering what would happen to me or my family if an Islamic Extremist reads here what I have written. Would I be put to death? Would I be tortured? If someone threaten my life for speaking of Christ would I keep silent or would I risk my life for the one who gave me life?

"Jesus paid it all
All to Him I owe
Sin had left a crimson stain
He washed it white as Snow.

O, Praise the One
Who paid my debt
And raised this Life up
From the Dead."

Recently Jon and I applied to God's Grace Adoption Ministry for a grant for our adoption. Included in a number of questions we had to answer was, "Give you Christian Testimony." Below you will find our responses to that statement.

"And there is salvation in no one else; for their is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12

Give Your Christian Testimony (Jon)
I have been blessed to have grown up in a Christian home with parents who were very devoted to teaching us and leading us in the way of Jesus Christ. Around the age of 5 I was attending a Taylor University Concert with my family at our church where an alter call was given. I did not respond to it there but a few days afterwards I was in the car with my Dad and I told him that I wanted to accept Jesus as my savior. Since then I have always held tightly to my faith in Jesus.
I was also blessed to be able to attend a great Christian school were my faith and knowledge of God grew. Immediately after graduating my family moved to New Hampshire from Ohio and I went through a time where I was bitter and angry with my parents, my life and God. Looking back I see how God worked through those times, comforting me when I needed it, removing a destructive relationship before it went too far, drawing me back to faith and trust in Him and leading me to my beautiful wife.
God has continued to teach me more about Himself and how to become a true disciple of Christ throughout my marriage and our last adoption. I have learned to trust God in the most impossible situations and not to fear the circumstances I am in as long as I am following Him.

Give Your Christian Testimony (Jolene)
I received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior in August 2002, when I was 18 years old. I had always grown up going to church and heard about God and Jesus many times but I had never heard of being in need of a savior. Or at least I never had ears to hear until August 2002. As a child I believed in God and used to read my Bible with my parents but when I became a teenager I still didn’t know Jesus as my Savior. However, the seed had been planted and when I entered into an impure dating relationship at 16 I knew God was tugging at my heart.
He began to open my eyes to the sins I was committing and my heart was restless as I went on dating in a way that didn’t honor God. Thankfully God is always at work and at the same time I was falling into sin God was drawing my Mom closer to Himself. She began to seek God daily and I witnessed her getting up early to pray and spend time in God’s word. She gave me a Bible on Christmas day 2001 and I knew something had changed in her. A Bible for a Christmas gift didn’t seem very exciting to a teenager who didn’t know Jesus yet but this would turn out to be the best gift I had ever and will ever receive.
That following summer I continued to feel restless knowing I was still sinning against God in my dating relationship and I began to read this Bible my Mom had given me. I brought it work every day and when the gift shop that I worked at was slow I would open it up and read and read. I couldn’t get enough of it and I loved it! God was opening my eyes to the truths in His word and I was feeling even sorrier for my Sin. “Would I ever be forgiven or made right with God?” was a question that never left my mind. Even though it was painful to have this constant guilt and questioning God in His sovereignty allowed it so I could see my need for a savior.
As I sought out to know God more I attended a four day Christian Music festival and for the first time I saw people worship the Lord like I had never seen them before. With their hands raised up to the sky and their eyes closed they sung unhindered to this God I would soon meet! I remember loving what I felt as the various Christian artist lead us in worship but I also remember feeling so guilty knowing that I had lead a sinful life with my boyfriend and I didn’t know how to obtain God’s forgiveness. That is, until one night Rebecca St. James came on and she spoke about sexual purity and forgiveness in Christ. She talked about how Jesus could cleanse us from our sins and make us pure again.
As she sang out, “This is the air I breathe, This is the air I breathe, Your Holy Presence living in me, and I’m Desperate for you Jesus, I’m desperate for you Jesus.” I lifted my hands and made that my prayer at the top of my lungs. I repented of my sins, and asked Jesus to be my savior. I acknowledge that there is no other name under heaven given to men by whom we must be saved (Acts 4:12), and that He is the way, the truth and the life; that no one comes to the Father but through Jesus (John 14:6). When I accepted Him as Savior that night I remember feeling an indescribable peace in my heart, no longer was I restless, no longer did I have guilt for my sin, and no longer did I feel unclean. He washed me as white as snow (Isaiah 1:18) and now I could go to God without my sin separating me from Him and because of Jesus’s death for my sins and my acceptance of Him as Savior I would now spend eternity in Heaven with Him.

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."(John 3:16).



Two very different lives but the same colcusion, Jesus is the Way. The truth about God washing our sins as white as snow became so real for both Jon and I. We live in a day and age where people don't view view sexual impurity as Sin but God does and that is what matters. He also views lying, stealing, lusting, and taking the Lord's name in vain as sin to. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+20%3A1-17&version=NIV So what does my sin deserve-DEATH. In the Old Testament God required a animal sacrifice to pay for Sin, a blood sacrifice. Yet because we are sinful beings we would have had to keep making animal sacrifices for eternity and we could never take care of our separating from God due to Sin.

That is why God in His love for us and a desire to be in relationship with us sent His only Son Jesus as the final payment for our sins. His perfect Blood was shed for you and me on that cross and his death payed for our sins once and for all. After three days God raised Jesus from the dead and He is seated at the right hand of God. Now when I confess that I am a sinner and receive Jesus as Lord and Savior for the payment of my Sins, I am made right with God and He enters into an eternal love relationship with me. I am saved from Hell not by my works but by my acceptance of Jesus as the only way to Heaven and to God.

I am not the perfect little Christian girl nor is Jon the perfect Christian guy but instead we are sinners just like you who chose to accept God's free gift of Salvation in His Son Jesus. Accepting Jesus is not about becoming Happy and having the perfect life but about being saved from Hell and a no longer living a life separated from God. The joyous life comes from living the way God wants us too in Him and therefore escaping further painful consequences of Sin.

I believe this Woman has chosen right in Denying Muhammad. What do you believe?