39 And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, Acts 15:39 (ESV)

The Bible does not tell us where he went after Cyprus or what happened to him in Cyprus, but chronologically this is the last mention of Barnabas in the NT.  Church tradition tells us that Barnabas never lived to leave Cyprus.

Martyrdom of Barnabas

Certain Jews came to Cyprus, where Barnabas was then preaching the gospel.  They were greatly distressed at his extraordinary success.  They ganged up on him as he was preaching and defending the Christian faith in the synagogue, dragged him out, and, after they tortured him, stoned him to death.

His cousin John Mark, watched all this happen, and buried his body in a cave, where it remained until the time of the Emperor Zeno.   A monastery was built in his name at Salamis, Cyprus.  A tomb reputed to hold his remains was found in 488.  He is the Patron Saint of Cyprus.

There Are Still Martyrs Today

Tertullian is credited with saying that, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”  Most of us hear these words and think of story’s such as the one I have related above about people from the history of the Church, but there are still martyrs today.  In fact on January 17, 2010 more than 100 Christians were killed in Jos, Nigeria, when riots between the Christian and Muslim erupted.

You can find out more about today’s martyrs at “The Voice of the Martyrs” website.

I once read of a group of Soviet soldiers who went into a church with their machine guns yelling they were there to kill all of the Christians.  The officer in charge said “Comrades I know that some of you really do not believe in this superstition, so I will give you to the count of ten to leave before I deal with these weak-minded traitors to our great revolution.”  As he counted to ten people jumped out of windows and ran as fast as they could out of the doors.  As soon as the commotion of those fleeing from the church had ended the Soviet officer looked at the few Christians who remained and said, “Brothers and Sisters in Christ now that all the hypocrites are gone let’s worship our Lord.”  Were such an incident to occur at your Church this Sunday what would your reaction be?

Please pray for God to protect the Christians in Nigeria!

“Worrying does not take away tomorrow’s troubles; it takes away today’s peace!”

Whenever you are I worry we are practicing negative meditation. The Hebrew word which conveys the concept of meditation is based on the idea of rumination. Cattle are ruminants. That means cattle chew the cud. When a cow swallows a mouthful of grass it will later regurgitate it and chew it again. It will repeat this process again and again until it gets the most nutrients possible from the blades of grass it consumes.

Christian meditation is a spiritual process whereby we mentally remember a Bible verse over and over so that we may maximize the truth which we may obtain from it.  Worry is negative meditation where we focus and refocus on all that might possibly go wrong.  Christian meditation brings us peace worry brings us fear.

As we prepare ourselves today I ask you to “put off” worry and “put on” trust. Jesus clearly teaches us that worry has no place in our Christian character.

²⁵ “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ²⁶ “Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? ²⁷ “And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? ²⁸ “And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, ²⁹ yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. ³⁰ “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! ³¹ “Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ ³² “For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. Matthew 6:25–32 (NASB)

The basic idea Jesus is communicating is that we have no power to change any of the circumstances of our lives through worry. His Father already knows what we need and we should trust Him and not waste our lives worrying about those things over which we have no control. In this Bible passage Jesus is clearly teaching us that the focus of our thinking should be on trusting our Heavenly Father rather than worrying.

In fact Jesus’ teaching is much stronger than to simply suggest we not worry about food, the length of our lives, or clothing.  He tells us not even to worry about how we will answer those who prosecute us when we are on trial for our lives because of our faith in Him.

¹⁹ “But when they hand you over, do not worry about how or what you are to say; for it will be given you in that hour what you are to say. Matthew 10:19 (NASB)

In another parable Jesus teaches us that worrying about the things of this life actually choke God’s Word making it ineffective and unfruitful in our lives.

²² “And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. Matthew 13:22 (NASB)

Could it be that those who claim that they cannot understand God’s Word, or that it does not work for them have missed this basic point. Perhaps such individuals worry reveals their lack of trust. The apostle Peter also tells us that we should cast our cares, or anxieties, or worries upon God because we can trust Him.  Why? He cares for us!

⁷ casting all your care upon Him, because He cares about you. 1 Peter 5:7 (HCSB)

The apostle Paul clarifies the teaching about worry. Paul tells us that instead of worrying we should instead petition God through prayer while thanking Him all the while for the requests we make.

⁶ Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Philippians 4:6 (HCSB)

To thank God in advance of receiving that for which we have asked should not be misunderstood as the false teaching “name it, claim it.”  Instead, Paul is telling us that we should trust God so much, and worry so little. Whenever we ask God to supply our needs in prayer we should be so confident that God cares for us, and will supply our needs (as Jesus has taught us) that from this confidence in God springs our natural thanksgiving, even before we have received anything we have asked for in prayer.

Join me please today in “putting off” worry and “putting on” trust in God. Because God knows what we need before we ask. He is also completely reliable and worthy not only of our thanks, but also of our praise!

At that moment something happens on the planet; the fall occurs. The entire planet that was made in the image of God and that God had said was good even that it was very good, in that precise moment all creation fell. This is why when you plant your garden you plant seed but the weeds grow. Has anyone here ever planted ragweed? Of course not! You don’t plant it, it just grows. Don’t you wish tomatoes would grow just as easily as weeds. Why does this not happen? Because of the fall! God has cursed the earth and he cursed the woman with pain in childbirth, and with being subject to men. Go back and read Genesis chapter 3.

⁸ They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” ¹⁰ He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” ¹¹ And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” ¹² The man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.” ¹³ Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” ¹⁴ The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life; ¹⁵ And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.” ¹⁶ To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.” ¹⁷ Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. ¹⁸ “Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; ¹⁹ By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.” Genesis 3:8–19 (NASB)

And then God curses man and says by the sweat of your brow you will earn all that you earn.

The world as we know it is the result of Satan’s influence.

Whenever John speaks of the “world” he is speaking of the world’s system, which is fallen in its nature.

This is why Jesus says “while I was with them I protected them and kept them safe in the name you gave me, my prayer is not to take him out of the world but protect them from the evil one” (John 17:12). Please do not misunderstand, our job is not to be working on making a spaceship so we can all get out of the world, but to be constantly vigilant while we live in the world, and although we are in the world we should not allow the world to be in us. We are in it but not of it.

Now in John 17:20-21 we read “my prayer is not for them alone (it is not just of the disciples) I pray also for those who would believe in me through their message (so that’s for us) that all of them may be one Father just as you are in me and I am in you made they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

So Jesus brings together two things.Step one in our warfare plan is to realize that we do have an enemy and it is not one another. Jesus has and continues to pray for our spiritual protection and unity. Our unity is critically important to our ability to engage in spiritual warfare. In his model prayer Jesus taught us to pray for protection from the evil one and in his high priestly prayer Jesus also prayed for our protection from the evil one as well as our spiritual unity. Each of us need to understand our great need for protection, what it means to pray for protection from evil, and how it is accomplished.