Amen.

What's up guys, Alex here?

I want to talk to you about mental persecution.

Listen to this verse, Matthew chapter 5, 10 through 12.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs of the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake.

Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in

heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

So what is mental persecution? I think a lot of times when we think that our persecution is not

physical, it's not as serious or it's not as legit. Like for example, our brothers and sisters overseas in Syria,

they're going through physical persecution, physical pain, physical beating.

Everyone who's going to call themselves a Christian, everyone who's going to follow Jesus is going to go through hardships.

The word persecution that Jesus uses in Matthew chapter 5, it means to make one run.

Persecution, mental persecution is when someone or some situation causes you to run.

Is your mind racing? Is your mind running because of how people are treating you for Jesus' sake, for righteousness sake?

You're following Jesus, you want to live according to His commandments, you want to be obedient to him.

And the way that people are treating you, the way that people are speaking at you, reviling you, taunting you is what that word means.

It's causing your mind to run rapidly, with anxiety, with depression, with isolation, with loneliness.

Mental persecution is cunning.

When something is cunning, it's deceptive. It's hard to pinpoint. It's tricky.

And that's what mental persecution is. It's tricky. If you read the Gospels,

you'll see Jesus being tricked by these Pharisees. They were mentally persecuted him.

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