I pray regularly for those around the world who represent “the persecuted church”.

I used to pray for them to be delivered from their persecutors until I read their pray requests. Many of them said that they didn’t want prayer for deliverance but rather that we pray for them to be bold during their trials.

Through these tests, they wanted their heavenly Father to be glorified and they were more concerned about their persecutors coming to faith than their own comfort.

In scripture we find an example of a follower of Jesus who experienced deliverance and later death during his persecutions. In Acts 12, Simon Peter was arrested for preaching about Jesus and put in prison where the intention was to have him put to death. In verse 7 of that chapter, we read the following story: “ Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. ‘Quick, get up!’ he said, and the chains fell off Peter’s wrists.” Peter was escorted out of prison to safety. Jesus had previously told Peter that there would be a day when Peter would be killed for his faith which tradition reveals did happen. Paul is another person who experienced many times where he was rescued from eminent death but later on in his life, he was put to death for his faith.

The attitude of believers has been, and still should be, that whatever will get our heavenly Father more honor and what will result in more people coming to Jesus is what we desire. Either way, the believer gets delivered.

If God allows us to continue on being delivered from harm for practicing our faith, then more people can be touched from our ministries.

But if there ever comes a time that we are killed for our faith then we still win; we get to spend eternity in that wonderful place God has prepared for us.