What does your faith cost you? Do you pay a price for following Christ?
For me the only price I’ve truly paid is the sacrifice of a few relationships. Bottom line is there are people in my life who know I follow Christ and for whatever reason, that makes them uncomfortable and they choose not to be around me.
It hurts! It is more difficult in those times when I see pictures of those friends getting together and knowing that I didn’t get an invite. It’s OK! Jesus said we’d have difficulties in following Him. Matthew 16:24-26 says, Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”
To me that sounds like following Christ would cost more me than a few relationships. He says take up my cross? What does that mean? A cross is an instrument of death and Christ is telling us all to take it up if we are to follow him. There is emotional pain in the loss of friends, but I think in comparison to the cross Christ said to take up, I can always meet new friends!
This subject was fresh on my mind in the last couple of weeks, because I read an article where 100 members of a church “Early Rain Covenant Church” located in China were recently thrown in jail after being arrested on Sunday December 9. While we were here at New Hope in our warm church, lighting the advent candle for Peace, and sing songs to celebrate Christmas our brothers and sisters in China were being arrested.
At the time I read the story, arrests were still being made. Among those taken away were Pastor Wang Yi, senior pastor of Early Rain, and his wife, Jiang Rong. The two had not been heard from since the day they were arrested and many of their students, including seminary students, are still in custody, according to the story.
Every day people are sharing and standing up for their faith less and less in America and here is a group of followers in China who were thrown in jail for theirs. How would the number in churches across America dwindle if people faced being jailed because of their faith?
This article was a challenge to me! What price do I pay for my faith? What does following Jesus and preaching the Gospel message truly cost me? I’ve already shared my answer to that question, so what am I going to do by being challenged? My hope is that since I can share Jesus and my faith without fear of harmful persecution, or being jailed, I will make sure I am looking for opportunities and then taking advantage of the opportunities to share and invite.
While that’s the challenge issued to myself, it’s the same challenge I will issue to all of us here at New Hope. Let’s pray for these Christians in China who are missing and have been jailed, but let’s make sure that we keep in mind the price they paid and take advantage of living in a country where we can freely worship and share Christ.
Isaiah 52:7 says, 7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of a messenger who proclaims peace, who brings good news, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God rules!”
Even though we can freely worship and share, we are surrounded by people who need messengers to come and share this news with them and since we can do it, we should. It’s what Christ commanded us to do in Matthew 28, 18 Jesus came near and spoke to them, “I’ve received all authority in heaven and on earth. 19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to obey everything that I’ve commanded you. Look, I myself will be with you every day until the end of this present age.”
As we begin a new year and we make plans to eat better, to save more money and to improve ourselves, let’s also make plans to keep these persecuted Christians on our minds and in our prayers and let’s make plans to take advantage of the opportunity to share the gospel!
Blessings and much love,
Pastor George
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