Pastor George Rigos
SENIOR PASTOR | KENTRO PISTIS | ATHENS, GREECE
Hi. I am Pastor George Rigos from Athens, Greece. I am the European KBM director and the pastor of our church over here. It is so good to be with you today on these 30 days of prayer. We are already on day 17. Wow. Amazing. You know that prayer is working and our prayers are making a difference. Today we are going to pray for the persecuted Christians. This is something that is real. It’s not just from biblical times, from Paul’s times, but it is something that is very, very real. It is still happening today all over the world. In our congregation, we have refugees from Iran who can’t go back because their families will literally kill them if they go back. And we have them from so many other places. I have a friend of mine from Turkey. She accepted Jesus and was so excited about this. Her father found out and he sent a hitman to try and kill her. Today she has a scar across her cheek because the guy came up behind her to kill her. He missed her, praise God. But he got her cheek. And her husband was sent to jail for believing. It’s real. It’s true. The persecutions are happening, but also in America and in our so-called first world nations and Western nations. There’s this persecution because nobody wants the Word of God, nobody wants the truth. They want to follow the darkness that is being purported and being pushed right now. So we need prayer because there’s persecution that is physical, there’s persecution that a spiritual, there’s persecution in every, every realm. If we look at Ephesians chapter 6, verse 18 it says, “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;” We need to pray for the body of Christ around the world. “And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel, For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.” Because we don’t want this persecution to stop us from sharing. That’s a key prayer point as you pray today - that we may continue to be bold, no matter what is coming against us, no matter what is trying to stop us - that we will continue to be bold in sharing the Word and letting people know that Jesus is true and that there is a solution for them - because you and I, my brother and sister, are the solution for this hurting world, for this persecuted world. In Hebrews chapter 13, we look at verse 1. It says, “Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” Don’t close yourself off. Don’t shut down the world because they are coming against us. No. We continue to be bold. We continue to be strong. We continue to declare the Word. And it says to remember the prisoners that are chained with them - those who are mistreated - since you yourself are in body also. There are prisoners who are being imprisoned because of their faith. We need to pray for them. We need to be praying for everybody. We need to be praying for the church, in this day and age, that we may be bold and continue to be the light of the world. God bless you today as you pray. Don’t give up.