Obedience

Through the last week I have been talking about witnessing, testimonies and how your life can change other lives.  We live in a world heavily impacted by a single political prisoner a little over 60 years ago: Boris Kornfeld.  One of the few people I actually look forward to meeting in Heaven.  His witness was short, but it was to throw the world of the 20th century into turmoil!

It would not be pleasant to be cast into the roll of a Boris Kornfeld ... to struggle just to live, more than likely convicted for a crime made up to just raise the work prison rolls - and then beat to death, probably in your sleep, because you are a Christian.  Sigh .... scary!

But, you can be a witness for your faith, you can be living it today ... but if you think you are - and there is no price you are paying for it - guess what you are not doing!  Living for Christ is to be in the face (nicely) of the world and the hypocrites of our faith.  No, no one is going to like you, no one is going to back you up, and all you have got is the Holy Spirit to barely hold on to - because it is ALL you have got!

You discover the truth of the Bible, you can now expect your family to walk away, disown you, maybe even hold a mock funeral in your honor.  Your friends scurry away and hide.  Don't expect other Christians or your Church to back you or be there for you - flat not going to happen in this politically correct paganism which the western church has fallen victim to.  Yeah, you are going to become real popular!  And that is exactly what you as a Christian are called to!

And through all this - you are still human.  You will weep, you will fail, you will rebound, you can only understand in retrospective - perhaps years later ... sigh ...

And yet, again, this is the life you should expect!  No fame, no fortune, little is any love, your only warmth the peace God gives you.  Of course, this is not how it is supposed to be!  Your friends, your church, your family should all be standing with you - just as you are with them in their witness!  Think on the Book of Acts and the witness of the believers collectively and separately!  It can happen, it did happen, it still should be possible then.  The problems is that the world has flooded into our belief and chocked the Holy Spirit out!  Pragmatism and self desire mystically have replaced and silenced the very Spirit that powered Christians through the ages ...

Kornfeld never had the luxury of finding the Christian faith without persecution ... no, he was fully in the fire when he found Christ as his savior from this life and the curse of death.  And he took what little he knew and he shared this with whom ever would listen ... even the likes of a dying young man by the name of Alexander Solzhenitsyn.  Solzhenitsyn, sometimes "free" to serve the desires of the Soviet State, often the prisoner of the same for his stands for Christ and the God-ly view of the importance of human life.  His writings destroyed the magic of the Soviet empire in the world's eye and the rest became the history of the 20th century.

If you do believe, beyond any cost, the truth of the Jesus' Gospels (His life, death and resurrection) - then you need to start to take a stand for Jesus and His truth!

I am not saying go burn down building or riot or kill random people ... Jesus' example and the examples of all of the Apostles are in violent  opposition to this idea!  No, your witness is with your family, your friends,  your co-workers, your neighbors - etc.

Just know, you will face opposition ... and you will have an impact ... and you will be rewarded for your obedience.  And you will be a real prayer warrior.