Persecution is a birthright of the believer; it comes with one’s Savior. And, as with all other things that come with Him, how can it not be good?

Persecution is also something we inherit from our spiritual forefathers. In Matthew 23:35, Jesus taught His opponents that, in persecuting righteous people, they were simply fulfilling a family tradition of their own, a tradition of opposing the innocent. We are the innocent of this generation. Even more so will our children be.

Persecution is always of a doubled form; temptation and trial. The temptation is malevolently delivered by the enemy, the trial is beneficently brought by the Father. Both have a sifting in mind. God sifts us to separate the wheat from the chaff in each of us, to bring spiritual refinement and satisfying beauty. But the devil sifts with only one expectation: he hopes that nothing but chaff will be found in us. That’s all he expects of any believer because that’s all he sees in himself or anyone else. The devil tempts us from a vicious heart; the Lord tests us from a visionary heart.  Rev.2:10

I may indeed be persecuted for saying that the only lord of my conscience is not the state, but Christ.

“Hammer away, ye hostile bands. Your hammers break, God’s altar stands.”

“I was some time in being burned,
But at the close a Hand came through
The fire above my head, and drew
My soul to Christ, whom now I see.
Sergius, a brother, writes for me
This testimony on the wall –
For me, I have forgot it all.”