I think that one of the travesties of the modern church is the thought that once we make the decision to follow Christ everything will be better. We expect that God will bless us and that life will get better as we follow Him and submit to Him.
Jesus never promises that life will be easy!
Instead if you read the Bible what you will read is that the followers of Jesus were regularly persecuted and that it should be expected. We aren’t promised a reward here on Earth for following Him, but rather our reward will be in Heaven:
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
(Mat 5:10-12)
We only have to look at what happened to Jesus’ original 12-disciples to see this persecution lived out in their lives:
What happened to the 12-disciples?
- Peter – martyred in Rome. He was crucified upside down.
- Paul – martyred in Rome. He was beheaded.
- Andrew – martyred in Asia Minor, crucified.
- Thomas – martyred in India, stabed through with soldiers spears.
- Philip – martyred in Asia Minor, crucified or beheaded.
- Matthew – martyred in Ethiopia, stabbed with a spear.
- Bartholomew – martyred in Armedia, beheaded.
- James – martyred in Syria, stoned and clubbed to death.
- Simon – martyred in Persia, crucified.
- Matthias (replaced Judas) – martyred in Syria, burned to death.
- John – died of natural causes.
- Jude (Thaddeus) – martyred in Edessa, crucified.
You would think that the immediate followers of Jesus would have received the “greatest blessing”. If that is the case then the “greatest blessing” would be martyrdom…
How does that fit in with the idea that things will be better when you follow Christ?
Do we need to change how we talk about the truth of Christ’s Lordship and Salvation?
Is the modern Church preaching the gospel that we read about in Bible, or something that is watered down and made more palatable?
source: Christianity.com
Photo by Martin LaBar / Foter