“‘And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” -Luke 9:23
Much later, Dietrich Bonhoeffer reflected on these words from Jesus and wrote, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
It often seems like all possible evils are thrown at the objects of God’s greatest love—man. In the face of tragedy and adversity, all that is needed for darkness to blot out light is for followers of Jesus to do and say nothing.
We, the Body of Christ, must confront this evil rather than remain silent. If we know the truth of Jesus Christ but never go public to battle evil, we must ask ourselves the hard question: “Why?”
It seems to me that the answer to that question could be that we don’t like the word “deny” in today’s Scripture. Our perspective says, “I can have it all and have my seat in Heaven. I earned it.” With this mindset, we are missing Christ’s call to deny ourselves and follow Him, ultimately disregarding our identity as salt and light of the Earth (Matthew 5:13-14).
I keep asking myself, “Have I lost my saltiness? Is that why I refuse to speak?”
Reclaiming Your Saltiness
Brothers and sisters, the hope of the world remains solely found in pointing people to the love of Christ. Our light must begin to shine brighter.
The call of the Church today is to come out of our comforts with the world’s only hope—Jesus. We must go public with the cross of Christ in our words and deeds in the face of possible rejection. Remember, we have the conquering power of Jesus Christ’s resurrection on our side.
“And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” -John 3:19-21
You and I are the “whoevers” mentioned in this Scripture. Because of this, we’re called to go public with Jesus somehow, somewhere this week.
Pierce the Darkness
We get to pierce the darkness with His truth, trusting God that people will bow the knee of their hearts to say, “Yes,” to Jesus. But to do so, we must come out of hiding. We must be willing to be mocked so that the hope of Christ can go on the offense once again.
We, the Church, can fulfill this call by “Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. (Hebrews 12:2-3).”
Together, we can pierce the darkness with the light of Christ. I bid you to come and die with me to follow Jesus. Yes, I bid you come and die with me so that others may see Jesus.
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