Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, who also serves on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, estimates that as many as 8,000 Christians have been murdered in cold blood between January and September this year. Meanwhile, the Nigerian government does almost nothing—and the Biden administration has decided to do even less.

After decades of disturbing eyewitness reports, today’s international religious freedom observers have become deeply concerned about Nigeria’s imperiled Christian communities.
On Friday, November 19, just hours after Secretary of State Antony Blinken launched his first diplomatic outreach to Africa, we learned that the United States has inexplicably removed Nigeria from its State Department list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC). To some, that may sound like innocuous paperwork or an ambassadorial feel-good gesture. But, in fact, this de-listing of Nigeria’s CPC designation is an outrageous betrayal of an already brutalized Christian community. And it forebodes multiplied death squads, torched villages and farmlands, and devastated homeless refugees.
After years of well-documented massacres and mutilated survivors, the Trump administration began to look more closely at the Islamist targeting of Nigerian Christians. Announced by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Nigeria’s Country of Particular Concern designation was made in early December 2020.
The US State Department explains that CPC-designated countries have “engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom” during the reporting period. The International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) defines particularly severe violations of religious freedom as “systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom, including violations such as torture, degrading treatment or punishment, prolonged detention without charges, abduction or clandestine detention, or other flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, or the security of persons.”
Nigeria has long been one of the most dangerous countries on earth for Christians. According to Voice of America in early 2021:
A report by the US-based Christian persecution monitoring group Open Doors shows the number of Christians killed in 2020 increased by 60%, mostly because of Islamic violence against Nigerian Christians. The study says more than 2,200 of 4,761 Christians killed around the world in 2020 died in Nigeria because of radical Islamists… Another US-based organization, International Christian Concern, estimates 50,000 to 70,000 Christians have died in violent attacks in Nigeria over 18 years, mostly carried out by Boko Haram terrorists or arms-wielding gangs.
How dangerous is the situation in Nigeria?
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Fifty years later, perhaps it is time for us to revisit this document.  Are we living in times where some, on behalf of all, have determined what society should look like?  Do we see a mounting pressure to conform with what ‘they say’ is acceptable human thought and belief? Indeed, we should not be so naïve as to assume that the absence of marching military on our streets means we face no ideological threat. The pressure is growing for everyone quietly to conform.  More than that, the pressure is growing to affirm openly and celebrate what we know to be false.  

January does not just bring a new page on the calendar but a whole new calendar.  And with the new year, we tend to generate renewed commitments.  Maybe you have already determined what 2024 will mean for you.  Perhaps your mind has already pondered daily step counts, gym visits, dietary changes, or other healthy habits.  Or maybe you are thinking about Bible reading, daily prayer routines, or other spiritual goals.  May your resolutions last and bear good fruit!  But perhaps the resolution we need for 2024 is more foundational than healthy habits and more straightforward than spiritual practices.
As I write this, I am in Budapest, where I have just visited a museum of the political terror of the twentieth century.  As you can imagine, it is a sobering experience to see the vast walls of victims, the displays focused on the political prisoners, a room commemorating the persecution of the religious leaders, the torture chambers, the prison cells, and the gallows.  But perhaps the lingering memory for me will be the final room.  With red walls and hundreds of pictures, it felt like yet another presentation of victims.  But it was not.  It was a room of “victimizers” – ordinary people who were merely doing their job, simply following orders, just playing along, and thereby facilitating the evil machine.  We can remember the victims, and we must.  Yet we must also face the uncomfortable reality that most cogs in the cruel machine of death were ordinary people.
Fifty years ago, in February 1974, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was arrested in the Soviet Union and exiled to the West.  There, he was welcomed as a hero.  On the day of his arrest, he released a document entitled “Live Not by Lies.”  He knew the power of an ideology that sought to reshape society.  He also knew the power of individuals who simply refuse to lie (and the even greater power of a crowd joining together in this conviction).  He knew that the ideological system would totter and collapse when it ran up against the brick wall of reality, exemplified by many individuals refusing to play along with the evil fantasy.
Fifty years later, perhaps it is time for us to revisit this document.  Are we living in times where some, on behalf of all, have determined what society should look like?  Do we see a mounting pressure to conform with what ‘they say’ is acceptable human thought and belief? Indeed, we should not be so naïve as to assume that the absence of marching military on our streets means we face no ideological threat.
The pressure is growing for everyone quietly to conform.  More than that, the pressure is growing to affirm openly and celebrate what we know to be false.  Surely, it would be better to speak the truth now instead of growing our tendency to fit in and play it safe as the stakes mount.
Truth and Lies – Choosing not to lie was not an original idea for Solzhenitsyn.  Paul urged the Colossians not to lie to one another.  Not only had they put off their old self, but they had put on the new self to reflect their creator’s image (Colossians 3:9-10).  He told the Ephesian believers to speak the truth to one another since they were no longer defined by the lie (Ephesians 4:25).
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus addresses the anger underneath murder, the lust underneath adultery, and the daily consistency of speech beneath more flamboyant oaths (Matthew 5:21-37).  There is plenty of Old Testament support for the expectation that God’s people should be consistent speakers of truth (Exodus 20:16; Leviticus 19:11; Proverbs 14:5).
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How many goals can occupy the position of first in your life? Only one. “If you stay focused on one mission—seeking first Christ’s agenda of righteousness every sphere of your life and world—then,” says Jesus, “everything else will take care of itself.”

This past week, while studying George Barna’s Millennials in America report, I read “One of the most attention-grabbing attributes revealed in this research regarding the Millennial way of life is their widespread desire to identify a purpose for living. Three out of four Millennials are still searching for their purpose in life.” This evidence that Millennials want a life of purpose reminds me of the popularity of Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose Driven Life, which has been translated into 137 languages and sold more than 50 million copies. There is weighty evidence that human beings are designed to want a purpose for living. This episode series is designed to help the men listening accomplish exactly what so many Millennials—and so many humans in general want: experiencing the satisfaction and joy of knowing that they are accomplishing the purpose for which they were created. Our goal for this episode is to frame a biblical, one-sentence description of the mission that Christ assigned us—so that we can stay focused upon it.
So far in this series, Don’t Waste Your Life: Rule It for Jesus, we saw that the foundational commitment required to overcome a disordered way of life is the conviction that our inner private world of the spiritual must govern the outer physical world of activity. Then we observed that the only way to connect our everyday lives to God’s mission for us is intentionality. We observed Jesus demonstrating this intentionality by shutting out his outer world and retreating to a quiet place to discuss his mission with his CO, as a regular part of his life. Today we examine a third requirement for staying focused on our mission: mission clarity. A clear target on the wall to aim for is essential for living according to our mission. Fuzziness about our calling is a major cause of inaction. Competing internal drives take us down paths that consume our time and energy. I am reminded of the conversation in Lewis Carroll’s, Alice in Wonderland, between a disoriented Alice and the Cheshire cat. The cat’s sage wisdom is summarized in the famous quote, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.”
Let’s return to football for an analogy. The more I enjoy a son who coaches high school football, the more complicated I realize the offensive and defensive game plans have to be—and that’s just at the high school level! Nevertheless, as complicated as forming a game plan is, at least the mission is clear and simple. In fact, you could state the mission in one sentence. We need to move the football into the opponent’s endzone more times than they move the football into our endzone. Yes, there are extra points, safeties, field goals, and touchdowns. But at least the mission is clear: move the ball downfield on offense and stop them from moving downfield on defense.
What about our mission from Jesus? Is there some way to bring crisp clarity to our target on the wall by stating our mission in one sentence? After all, there are 7957 verses in the NT alone that relate to our mission. No wonder our understanding of it is so fuzzy! I believe Jesus has given us a one-sentence summary of our mission. It is just nine words: SEEK FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS (Mt 6:33). I believe this rich sentence is as accurate a description of the Christian’s mission as saying “The object of football is to get the ball into the opponent’s endzone more times than they get the ball into ours” is of the game of football. But Christians today often miss the simplicity and power of this mission summary. Why? Here are three reasons.
1. Many Christians today come from traditions that misunderstand the term kingdom of God. The Bible-believing Christians of the twentieth century in America were significantly shaped by a movement called Dispensationalism, which believed in inerrancy but denied the significance of the created material world, promoted an overly spiritualized Christianity, denied God’s command to Adam and Eve to shape culture (the cultural mandate), and instead urged separation from the “evil” world. Its view of the end times (called Premillennialism) deemphasized the present rule of Christ’s kingdom, teaching instead that Christ’s kingdom does not come until the return of Christ. This view ignored the command to seek the kingdom, because it saw the kingdom as primarily future. It mistakenly understood the words of the Lord’s prayer, “May your kingdom come. May your will be done” to be a request for Jesus to return soon, instead of a request for Christ’s present kingdom of righteousness to spread over the earth. Tim Keller explains:
Some conservative Christians think of the story of salvation as the fall, redemption, heaven. In this narrative, the purpose of redemption is escape from this word; only saved people have anything of value, while unbelieving people in the world are seen as blind and bad. If, however, the story of salvation is creation, fall, redemption, restoration, then things look different. In this narrative, non-Christians are seen as created in the image of God and given much wisdom and greatness within them (cf. Ps. 8), even though the image is defaced and fallen. Moreover, the purpose of redemption is not to escape the world but to renew it…it is about the coming of God’s kingdom to renew all things (“Our New Global Culture: Ministry in Urban Centers” article).
2. The second reason some believers miss the Matt 6:33 summary of our mission is that when they hear seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, they hear this command primarily as the evangelistic call to be saved. Good theology teaches us that the only way any of us is truly righteous is to be “declared righteous,” i.e. justified by God the judge through our faith. We default to thinking that seeking righteousness any other way means pursuing self-righteousness. To seek righteousness feels like moralism to us.
However, and it is a big however, IT IS THE LORD JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF WHO COMMANDS US TO SEEK FIRST HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS. Righteousness (DIKAIOSUNE) in the NT is not just a term to describe our being declared legally righteous by God the judge; it is also the term that describes our sanctification—our character growth into holiness. DIKAIOSUNE is whatever conforms to the moral will of God. It describes right living. It describes what is just, what is wholesome. To pursue righteousness is to pursue wholeness, the restoration of everything on earth broken by sin. It is to make life the way it was supposed to be before Adam and Eve brought sin’s destruction into the world. It is to restore shalom—complete flourishing over every inch of the earth through restored harmony with God, within ourselves, with other humans, and with the material world. Jesus’ mission was not only to justify (declare righteous) the elect; it was also to transform their character and restore wholeness (“rightness”) to his entire, good creation. Seeking righteousness is not moralism; it is our mission!
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