The Complacency Curse

Go to any church in a third world country, and ask them what Christianity means to them. You will hear some of the things you would expect such as love, grace, hope, and Jesus Christ. However, a word that they would all use that you might not be familiar with is suffering. Third world Christians can not imagine following Christ without suffering. In America we see this as wrong or unjust. Did Jesus and Paul not continually say that we would suffer. Nevertheless, in America we have become complacent. We do not have to suffer, and it is easy for anyone to claim Christianity a system for their own personal beliefs. Paul lived in a world where the cruel Nero was burning Christians to provide lighting for his parties, and throwing them to the lions for mere entertainment. I can walk down the street right now, and tell anyone I know that I love and follow Jesus with little or no persecution. Yet this has not been a blessing for us. Instead it has become the very thing that is drying up our bones and making us a church that would sit inside a building's walls once a week instead of a group that is risking everything just to get a small glimpse of the word. We have every freedom to speak to others about Christ, yet most everyone who has claimed Christianity has never shared the gospel with anyone in their life. Can suffering be a blessing? If you ever met someone who still stood for Christ in the face of persecution then you would know it to be true. Paul spoke of a thorn in his side continuously torturing him all so he would know that the grace of Jesus Christ was enough for him. I fear that we have become so ego centralized that we have become so absorbed with our idea of freedom that we forgot to actually be free. If you look at some of the modern day issues concerning ISIS, and how American Christians are getting a reputation for hateful bigotry I think we might have to start seeing that America might not have a choice for complacency anymore. I believe that there will come a time where your faith will not be in question, and neither will your ability to suffer. It will be choice of taking up the gauntlet at the risk of your life as Christ asks in Luke 9:23, or going home and living the way we have continued to live over the past several hundred years. I am not so sure this is a bad thing. So why wait until things turn for the worst? Why not learn now what you can always use later. Suffer for Christ, and live your life in the flesh by faith in the Son of God who loved you and gave himself for you. (Galatians 2:20). With love for all.


-Joshua