Make Jesus Known, Pray Without Ceasing

In Luke chapter 6, Jesus is teaching about living a life of character, which may draw some opposition. He says:
22 Blessed are you when men hate you, And when they exclude you, And revile you, and cast out your name as evil, For the Son of Man's sake.
23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy! For indeed your reward is great in heaven, For in like manner their fathers did to the prophets.

Because we call on the name of Christ, that does not mean we will be liked all the time.  There will be those who are dedicated to rejecting God and therefore reject us.  There are those that do not want to hear or receive the message that we have been sent to communicate.  We may encounter people who are angry toward God for whatever reason and may even seek to deny Him.  But, we can keep loving and keep praying, persevering for the sake of the gospel.

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Some brief words of encouragement from 1st Thessalonians 5, if we take them to heart, can be very powerful for us:
16 Rejoice always,
17 pray without ceasing,
18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

There has been widespread praise and celebration for the two young ladies who recently became the first two female graduates of the U.S. Army's Ranger School at Fort Benning, GA. 1st Lt. Shaye Haver and Capt. Kristen Griest passed the two-month course; it's the first time in the school's 60-year history that women have even been allowed to attempt it, according to a piece on the Christian Examiner website.

But the head of the so-called Military Religious Freedom Foundation is not happy with the ceremony that honored the completion of this milestone.  According to its website, the head of the organization, Mikey Weinstein, took issue with Brigade Chaplain (Maj.) Mark Winton's prayer. Chaplain Winton prefaced the prayer by saying, "I invite you to join me in prayer and I will be praying in Jesus' name."

Weinstein made reference to a "Christian cancer metastasizing throughout the broad totality of the U.S. Military." Not unexpectedly, he doesn't stop there. He said that the prayer was not only improper – it was "a despicable and asinine act of Constitutional defiance and criminality." He wrote, "In America, The Great Constitution trumps The Great Commission...The Army's senior leadership MUST expeditiously punish those shameless religious zealots and extremists who enabled such a fundamentalist Christian invocation of insuperable dominion and dominance, which deliberately and permanently marred what would have been an otherwise immensely proud moment in the history of the U.S. Armed Forces."

As the Examiner points out, Weinstein, failed to cite current Army regulations which make clear Chaplain Winton did not violate policy. Here's the quote: "Chaplains will perform their professional military religious leader ministrations in accordance with the tenets or religious requirements of the RO [religious organization] that certifies and endorses them (see DODD 1304.19)."

This is not an isolated incident.  But it seems that the military is no longer capitulating to Mr. Weinstein, as it has been accused of in the past.  The Air Force Times reports that the Air Force rebuffed the MRFF's demand that Maj. Gen. Craig Olson be court-martialed after he gave a 23-minute speech at a May 7 National Day of Prayer Task Force event in which he said God enabled him to fly aircraft, manage programs worth billions of dollars and sell weapons systems to the Iraqis.

He also asked the audience to pray for Defense Department leaders, who "need to humbly depend on Christ," and to pray for troops preparing to deploy again so they can "bear through that by depending on Christ."

An Air Force spokesman said that Olson did not break Air Force policy, because it was clear the opinions were his own and did not represent the views of the Air Force.

There may be challenges to our free exercise of religion.  We are called Biblically to express our faith, and the U.S. Constitution guarantees us the right to do so.   We hear so much about the so-called "separation of the church and state," but the First Amendment balances that with free exercise.

So, even when challenged, we can know that God is pleased when we seek to make Jesus known. He lives in us, and as we have seen Christ work in our hearts to transform our lives, so we can boldly and compassionately share our story.

And, even when challenged, we can follow the Biblical admonition to pray without ceasing.  How we need that today!  I believe this can apply to public prayer, as well as private prayer.  When called upon to join with fellow believers, we can stand together as a testimony of our dependence on God. Also, privately, we can be inspired to go before the Lord and present our requests, developing a fervent and fruitful life of prayer.  God is calling us to speak of Him and to Him, with a sense of expectation of what He will do.