Christian parenting. Well, hello, true seekers. Welcome to the very last day of our summer series on the Beatitudes.

I hope you have learned much about what it means to influence for Jesus,

to be an influencer for Jesus. So far we have learned that influencers for Jesus are poor in spirit.

They only rely on the power of the Holy Spirit living in them.

They mourn and grieve over sin and wickedness.

They are meek.

They hunger and thirst for righteousness. They are merciful. They are pure in heart and they are peace makers.

We have one more beatitude to learn about today. This last one is a pretty serious one. Are you

ready? Jesus said, Blessed are those who are persecuted for theirs is the

kingdom of heaven. I think Jesus might have saved this one for

last because he knew it was a serious one that we needed to be ready and

prepared for. I think it's interesting that of eight beatitudes out of just eight things that Jesus could tell us and prepare us for he chose to add persecution as one of them and that's because Jesus

knew that as we live in this world we are going to not only face hard times, but we will face people who don't understand that we believe in him

We will face people who might make fun of us laugh at us

Mock us Slam us might make fun of us, laugh at us, mock us, slander us, say all kinds of awful things about us and even hurt us because of our faith. And we have to be ready because Jesus has promised that those who are persecuted will receive the

kingdom of heaven. He said it's blessed to be persecuted. Can you believe that? He said

blessed are you who are persecuted. So the next time maybe somebody makes fun of

you or laughs at you for following Jesus. You can think,

man, I am blessed. I am blessed because I have the kingdom of God living inside of me.

So to be persecuted as a Christian

is to be treated cruelly or to be hurt or slandered

or mistreated for what you believe in.

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