Nik Ripkin

“I suddenly saw all the things that I have allowed to become common, things that would be considered miracles in the eyes of millions of believers in persecution. The truth is, these things that we take for granted are all miracles!”

“Perhaps the question should not be: "Why are other persecuted?" Perhaps the better question is: "Why are we not?”

“Persecution stop immediately where there is no faith and there is no witness.”

“...our pilgrimage among house churches in persecution convinced us that God may actually want to use them to save us from the often debilitating, and sometimes spiritually-fatal, effects of our watered down, powerless western faith.”

“It is crucial to understand that God values our help. But it is more crucial to remember that our all-powerful God is able to work with our without us, that our all-knowing God is not blind to the evil in His world, and that our ever-present God is there...whether we are or not.”

“Even though He wants our help, values our help, and calls for our help in changing the world, our all-powerful God is not helpless - even without us.”

“You can only grow in jail what you take to jail with you. You can only grow in persecution what you take into it.”

“Personal trust and spiritual maturity were often in direct proportion to the amount of suffering that had been offered for the faith.”

“...the Russian church had lost in its first decade of 'freedom' what Soviet believers had managed to hold on to under communisn for most of a century.”

“...persecution is normal for millions of believers around the world.”

“Then he raised his voice in a prophet-like challenge that I knew would live with me forever: "Don't ever give up in freedom what we would never give up in persecution!”

“He said, "Son, when did you stop reading your Bible? All of our stories are in the Bible. God has already written them down. Why would we bother writing books to tell our stories when God has already told His story. If you would just read the Bible, you would see that our stories are there.”

“...we should all read and forever remember Revelation 2:10 - here's what I require of you, that you should 'be faithful unto death.”

“I was captivated by the thought: what if persecution is the normal, expected situation for a believer? And what if persecution is, in fact, soil in which faith can grow?”

“For us, persecution is like the sun coming up in the east. It happens all the time. It's the way things are. There is nothing unusual or unexpected about it. Persecution for our faith has always been - and probably always will be - a normal part of life. (Spoken by a Russian pastor)”

“The stronger the persecution, the more significant the spiritual vitality of the believers.”

“...one of the most accurate ways to detect and measure the activity of God is to note the amount of opposition that is present.”

“Those of us who have grown comfortable with the teachings of Christ have allowed His teachings to lose their edge.”

“How is it, I wondered, that so many people are willing to die for financial or humanitarian reasons while many Christian groups insist on waiting until it is safe to obey Jesus' command to "Go" into all the world?”

“Jesus is better than all the pleasures, possessions, and pursuits of this world put together.”