By Cole Richards, President of The Voice of the Martyrs Part I: The “At Any Cost” Mindset Our Lord has taught us the first step in preparing for persecution, and our Chinese Christian family members have walked it out in exemplary fashion under a brutal Communist regime for more than 70 years. Christ instructed us to count the cost of discipleship and take up our cross daily. Following Him is costly, but since He is infinitely worthy, we must continue paying without a thought when persecutors raise the price by opposing us. VOM’s founder, Richard Wurmbrand, said, “A man really believes not what he recites in his creed, but only the things he is ready to die for.” The first step in preparing for persecution is identifying the things we will do at any cost. We will read God’s Word, pray, worship, gather with other believers and witness for Christ, and nothing will stop us from doing these things with willing and glad hearts. Because we do these things in obedience to the commands of our Lord, their worth is beyond evaluation. The value of everything else in this world pales in comparison, including our very lives. When I talk
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Every morning, Pastor Navid and his wife, Shadi, wake up knowing they could be behind bars by nightfall. In Iran, where authorities infiltrate house churches and tap believers’ phones, Christians must always be prepared for the possibility of arrest and imprisonment. For Navid and Shadi, however, the threat of imprisonment means little compared with their burden for those around them who don’t know Christ. Fortunately, the more they secretly share Christ in Iran, the more people they find who are ready to hear. Before the couple married, Navid witnessed firsthand the persecution of Christians by Iran’s authoritarian Islamic regime. While serving in seven different cities, including the capital, Tehran, he saw more than 40 Christians arrested. In one city, several Christians were arrested after the intelligence agency tapped a woman’s phone to identify local believers. In another city, Christians were arrested after a neighbor called police to report hearing Christian worship music. Elsewhere, someone pretended to be a Christian in order to infiltrate a house church. And at another location, a book of Christians’ names and church locations was stolen and given to police. Navid said the Christians he knows haven’t denied their faith when confronted by authorities. Most of
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