Persecution

Dear friends, when the fiery ordeal arises among you to test you, don’t be surprised by it, as if something unusual were happening to you. Instead, as you share in the sufferings of the Messiah rejoice, so that you may also rejoice with great joy at the revelation of His glory.
(1 Peter 4:12-13 Holman Christian Standard Bible ®©)

As citizens of the United States, we are protected from persecution by the laws that govern the nation. Increasingly, the enforcement of those laws is becoming limited in areas of the nation where justice and liberty are being influenced by people who hate Jesus, but if our only encounters with persecution have been in the US, we have not seen the real beast behind it yet. There are nations in which the laws offer no protection to believers, and others in which the laws actually demand persecution of followers of Jesus. Believers are genuinely in danger in most of the world.

Since we have seen only the US culture and spiritual climate, it is hard for us to realize that persecution and murder are the norm for believers in the earth. In the place where the most liberty still exists, it would be wise for us to be moved by what little persecution we see to be reminded to pray for the family in the rest of the earth to be strengthened and empowered to overcome evil with good. In our circumstances, it would be good for us to be converted to the likeness of Jesus by the persecution we do experience, and to pray that we would also be empowered to change the laws and the culture so that they are not taken by the enemies of the cross.

But you have followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, and endurance, along with the persecutions and sufferings that came to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from them all. In fact, all those who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
(2 Timothy 3:10-12 Holman Christian Standard Bible ®©)