Q4. A Healthy Willingness to Die

[lighthouse2014]

On 4/9/2004 at 1:18 AM, Pastor Ralph said:

Q4. Why is a willingness to die, if need be, essential to healthy Christianity during persecution. What happens when we aren't willing to die, when we are afraid to "take up our cross daily" (Luke 9:23) and follow Jesus? What does this have to do with "commiting ourselves to a faithful Creator"?

Willing to die for Christ during persecution shows our persecutors our faith in the Lord.

If we avoid persecution as Christians we will be showing others we are not true servants of the Lord.

What ever suffering we go through for Christ will be showing our faithfulness in the Lord our Creator. 

[Krissi]

Most Christians are willing to die for their faith but waffle at the thought of torture, stoning, beating, incineration, being eaten by animals, waterboarding, interrogation and intense suffering ... BEFORE God lets them die. From the comfort of our “easy” chairs, it is a costless mental exercise to opine on a godly death. Such thoughts take on reality when they grok the horror of death at the hands of cruel and sadistic government bureaucrats, cf. martyrs. So, sure, we are willing to die, but are less confident about being tortured to death.

To diminish the horrifying persecution and suffering of the martyrs by claiming they were "afraid to take up their cross daily" ... is mindbogglingly cruel. This was not a situation when they said a few cross words and then had to eat crow and apologize. This was torture unto death! That's what the cross represents. 

Here's what I want to know -- Does God cause Christians to suffer more than non-Christians? Are Christians more greatly persecuted than unbelievers? Could our loving father cease to protect us at the moment of need, after turning up the heat of the crucible to purify our character ... unto death? Is it God's will to be persecuted unjustly?

Yes, he gives us words when we need them, but then again, he also lets us die gruesome deaths. Death is the ultimate debilitation, after all. We are asked to overlook this, somehow, believing and trusting the God who caused us to suffer in the first place: note that God did not "permit" suffering, as if he couldn't help it, but actually "caused" our suffering in the sense that He desired we experience intense pain.

I simply cannot wrap my brain around the idea that a good and loving God wills for his children to be persecuted, tortured and killed for their faith and sanctification.