Some Still Do!

We are living a faith of half measures. We are living a Christianity of our own making wherein the cost has been discounted to such an extent that you can find eternal salvation in the bargain bin next to dented cans of peas and damaged boxes of Kleenex. It’s good to be an American Christian!

The general apathy has grown to such proportions that we hear of homes and churches being burned, and Christian men and women being butchered in places like Egypt, and we shrug our shoulders, roll our eyes, and think to ourselves ‘they should have sown more seeds and had more faith!’

Seeds and faith, after all, are what guarantee us an easy ride into heaven while simultaneously being bogged down with all the excesses of this earth while we walk upon it. It’s because they didn’t have the secret keys to the magic room that contains the magic cash machine that these Christians are being martyred, not because they stood for Christ even unto death.

We get angry at God if we can’t afford our dream vacation or buy our dream mansion. How would we react if we were called upon to suffer or even die for the cause of Christ?

In our hubris and pride and selfish nihilism we look down on those who are bleeding and dying for the sake of the gospel, smugly thinking to ourselves that they’re doing it for the cameras, because nobody really does that kind of stuff anymore when no one is looking and when there is no profit in it.

If a Christian dies in a dank prison cell from wounds suffered at the hands of his torturers and no one is there to film it, did it really happen? Does it really matter?

If there’s no feel good story, no positive message, no twist at the end of the saga about the power of positive thinking but just an unmarked hole where the body of the fallen is unceremoniously dumped does it even count?

If you can’t tell me how to get rich and get everything I ever wanted or prosperity think my way into a million bucks or bribe God into giving me my yacht, why are you wasting my time with tales of tortured and dying Christians? They should know better. They should go along to get along. They should learn the art of compromise. It’s not, after all, the fault of the Westernized Christians that those folks are so stubborn! We’ve learned to make peace with the world, we’ve learned to give in to their demands, we’ve learned to grovel and boot lick and compromise our way into the world’s acceptance. Why can’t they do the same?

They’re just trying to make us look bad…that’s what it is. They’re trying to guilt us into growing a spine, and actually stand up for truth and righteousness even at the cost of losing the feigned friendship of the world. They’re trying to shame us into being the Christians we claim to be, and not just playing at it as though this was some lifelong game and nothing more.

What is currently happening in Egypt ought to remind everyone of us who have been blessed with the grace of freedom that some still do suffer and bleed and die for the cause of Christ. We ought to be humbled by the knowledge that some still make the ultimate sacrifice for their King and Lord and Savior, and don’t just preach a veiled humanism aimed at making us feel better about our sin. No, perhaps it’s not happening in your church, or in your town, or as yet in your country, but some still do give their all, and joyfully so!

I am angry and frustrated and tired, because though these things are happening, and visibly so, we are still regurgitating the same tired message about the widow of Zarephath, and how since she made the pancake for the man of God first it is perfectly reasonable for the preacher to have a multi-million dollar house and drive around in a hundred thousand dollar car.

The men we revere and idolize today will become the scapegoats of tomorrow, but make no mistake, we will have no plausible justification before an all knowing God for not having stood, for not having persevered, and for not having overcome, because though most men today are teaching foolishness and heresy, the truth of God’s Word remains and all we have to do is read it and receive it.

2 Timothy 3:12-13, “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceived and being deceived.”

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.