What’s Harder than Dying for Your Faith?

Are you willing to die for your faith? I’d like to think I could answer yes to this question. Can you? But did you know that there’s actually something harder and requires an even greater love for Christ than dying for your faith? Let me explain.

What Does it Mean to Die for your Faith?

I’ve had many dreams where I’m dying for my faith. The most memorable of these dreams was when some soldiers lined me up in front of a tank and asked me “Are You a Christian?” Fortunately, my dream-self was brave and said yes. They fired the tank’s cannon.

In my dream, everything slowed down. Peaceful music played in my head, and I felt God’s presence. Despite the tank shell hurtling toward me, everything was peaceful and serene. It was a beautiful moment.

I remember thinking in my dream, “God, here I come. I can’t wait to see you and be with you forever.”

Dwell on that statement for a moment. If you’ve humbled yourself, recognized all the evil you’ve said and thought and done, and turned to Jesus as the only one who paid the punishment you deserved, then you are safe. Death shouldn’t scare you.

Death is the best thing that could happen to you. It means you can finally be with your loving God. Praise God!

What could be better than finally escaping this broken world and stepping into an eternal life with God and all things beautiful?

What’s Harder than Dying for Your Faith?

One of my coworkers shared a story with me. His friend said, “Chris, say a big guy tackles you to the ground. After he pins you to the ground, he pulls out a gun and presses it to your head. He says ‘Are you a Christian? If you don’t deny Christ, I will kill you.’ What would you say?”

After truly considering the weight of it all Chris answered, “I think I’d say yes.”

“Good,” His friend answered. “So you’d say you are willing to die for Christ?”

“I guess so,” Chris replied.

“If you are willing to die for him, then are you willing to live for him?”

That’s the real question.

The Real Sacrifice

I’d love to die. It’s almost like a shortcut to heaven. Now that I’m engaged, I absolutely do not want to do that to my fiance. But selfishly, I’d love to die and be with Jesus already.

Living 90 years on this sinful planet following God faithfully sounds really hard. Not the “following God faithfully” part, but the “living 90 years on this sinful planet” part.

I hate my sinful nature that keeps lying to me and telling me that God isn’t worth it, or that I should seek my own happiness instead of helping others. I hate getting in bad moods and forgetting all the amazing things God’s done for me.

My body tells me to do things all the time that I later regret. Why can’t I just desire the things that truly make me happy and bring me real joy?

Death is the best thing that could happen to you. It means you can finally be with your loving God.

Following God in this world is like trying to swim upstream. I can’t wait for the day when my sinful nature will die with my old self. I can’t wait to be free to follow God with absolute joy and to actually do as he asks rather than constantly failing.

Fighting through this life is hard. But, if we are willing to die for Christ, how much more should we be willing to live for him?

Dying for Christ is a one-time decision that requires strength for one moment. Living for Christ is a decision we have to make every second that requires constant strength. Yet that is what we are called to.

The Real Hope

To end this blog, I want to bring this all back to something happy. As hard as it is to live for Christ, and as demanding as that may be, we must remember we are free. We are free from our sins. No matter how bad we mess up, we are still free.

So I don’t want you to think that you have to work hard all the time and constantly fear messing up or being selfish. I want you to remember that it’s not about how good you can be. It’s about being close with Jesus.

Live for Christ, yes. Maybe even die for him. But, we absolutely must rest in him and enjoy his presence. What a joy that is. And what a hope we have that no matter what happens now or in the future, we can always know that nothing will separate us from his love if we’ve already asked him to come into our lives.

Friends, let’s live wilder.

 

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If you’d like to be inspired by someone who has risked death for the sake of the gospel, check out my podcast episode: Episode 5: How to Love Your Captors with Charles Wolf (Part 2)