The 70 Christians who were beheaded

70 Christians were executed inside a church in Congo

I am a Sanju Samson fan. If you don't know who he is, that's okay. I forgive you. He plays cricket for India. I'll stop there. The other day as I was walking through the town, I wondered what the update is on his recent hand injury. I felt the urge to take out my phone and check on the same. Right at that moment, I was overwhelmed by shame, when I had a self-realization about the kind of things that I cared about. Throughout the week, I had been reading about matters that should have concerned me - about the pastors still in jail, the believers beaten during the church service, disrupted church services, and churches that no longer can have weekly gatherings. But I was busy thinking about a cricketer's injury. On the same day, I came across the news of the 70 Christians who were beheaded in the Democratic Republic of Congo by a radical group linked to ISIS.

The sad incident happened on the 13th of February. The militants who were members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a rebel group with ties to the Islamic State group, took 70 Christians inside a protestant church building in Kasanga. They were butchered to death by either machetes or hammers as per the reports from open doors.

The open doors reported that the incident started at 4 a.m., on the same day, when militants captured and tied up some 20 Christians in the community of Mayba after going door to door. The agitated people from the Christian village started planning on the rescue of those captured but were surrounded and 50 more were captured. All of the seventy were then marched to the nearby church where they were executed. The victims included both women and children. Some of you, as you read this might have come to hear about this incident only now.

That takes us to a sadder reality of how the major media companies in the world have somehow "missed" reporting this incident. Think about it. 70 people including women and children, taken inside a church and beheaded by a radical group. And even after 2 weeks, most of the world has not even come to know about it. Isn't this something that should be on the headlines of all the newspapers and channels? Why didn't any of the major world leaders condemn the actions of the rebels? Maybe they had better things to care about or they were not interested in the death of Christians. Maybe, they thought it was just normal for Christians to undergo persecution. So what's there to report? The media may have plenty of reasons to not care about the persecution of the church. But do I?

The Lord convicted me of how little I cared about the persecuted church. It's easy for me to quote Tertullian and say, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church", as long as the knife is not on my throat. I don't want to do that. I pray that God breaks my heart first when I hear of such news. The seventy were my brothers, my sisters, and my children in Christ. They suffered. And while they suffered, Christ suffered with them. Jesus identified Himself as the Persecuted while He appeared to Paul(Acts 10:5). He is there with those being beaten and abused for their faith. Christ is there in those jails alongside the men and women awaiting justice. He is there with the isolated in those small homes in the remotest villages of our country. He is there with His people. He cares for His people, and so must we.

Their families underwent(and still undergo) sorrow and fear. We ought to pray for them. We ought to pray for the thousands undergoing persecution, to remain strong and be bold. If we don't stand in the gap for them, then who else will? "And if one part of the body suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if a part is honored, all the parts rejoice with it."(1 Cor 12:26, NASB). Persecution is a matter of both suffering and honor. Our brothers and sisters experience real mental and physical pain as they go through these things. We should share in that same suffering while we pray for them. At the same time, they are honored in heaven as they go through these difficulties. We should rejoice for this reason. If we care, we will experience the same pain, and joy they experience as they patiently endure.

I often worry about what I will do when persecution comes. But the Lord has been teaching me that the more important question is concerned with what I am doing now. Do I care? Do I pray? Do I love my brothers and sisters all over the world? And most importantly, Do I love Jesus?

Because of my distracted, undevoted, and sinful heart, I sometimes care and think more of things of the world. But the longer we linger through life with such things in mind, the lesser will be the impact we make on the kingdom of God. We often forget how easy it is to slowly and steadily waste away our lives. I pray that we may not do that!

A few prayer points:

• Pray for the families of those who were murdered, to be strong in the Lord.

• Pray for the unstable political conditions in D.R.C to be restored to normal.

• Pray for the global church to be a witness in the midst of persecution.

• Pray for us, that we may truly care about things that Jesus cares about.

• Pray for us, that the love of God for His people, for the persecuted and persecutors be poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

In our church, we use the Open doors world watch list to pray for one persecuted country every Sunday. It maybe a good resource for your church to use for prayer.