Joy

If We Should Have to Die

Standard

Although prepared for martyrdom, I prefer that it be postponed. —Winston Churchill

The end of October brought us three Indonesian girls beheaded for no other reason than their faith in Christ. Just last week, two Christian girls were shot in the head, one of them having since died. President Bush goes to China even as three Chinese Christians are imprisoned The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayerfor the crime of printing Bibles for the Chinese people to read.

All I ask is one question: Are you prepared to be martyred for the Lord Jesus Christ?

I suspect that Churchill's witticism is closer to the hearts of most Christians in America than the image of five dead American missionaries lying half submerged in an Ecuadoran river bed. Shouldn't the idea of martyrdom make it at least a fraction more difficult to get excited about loading our new iPod Nano with a thousand CCM offerings? Shouldn't the increased persecution of Christians in Eritrea, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, China, Vietnam, and a plethora of other countries cause us to stop for a second during the orgy of shopping that passes for Christmas today?

Although this last Sunday was designated International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, this issue of martyrdom has been on my mind since the day I first confessed Christ as Lord. Yet I don't meet too many Christians who actually think about it at all. I rarely hear about martyrdom from the pulpits in most churches in this country. It's something that happens elsewhere, but not here. We console ourselves with the fact that some anti-Christian punk might take a key to our Volvo, but that's as far as it goes.

It went a lot farther for four Indonesian girls who paid the ultimate price for their profession, didn't it? Did their churches teach that one day they might have to die because the world hated them?

The world doesn't really hate us here in America. We've camouflaged ourselves so readily with worldliness that no self-labeled persecutor of the Church would even be able to find us, much less martyr us for the Faith. We've got an appointment tomorrow with our Crown Financial consultant to go over our 401k distribution, don't we?

Not only have we not counted the cost all that well, but we've ignored it all together. Death is such a sticky thing and the less we bring up the subject, the more likely it is that we can postpone it altogether, especially if it involves winding up on the wrong end of a spear in a jungle. No jungles around here, right?

That jungle just may be coming to us, though. Even then, the sad truth for a lot of us, including myself, is that our lights may be so dim that the real haters of Christ may not feel that we're worth a spear. Why snuff a smoldering wick when there are still a few floodlights to deal with—emphasis on few.

I suspect that too many of us are working overtime to ensure that everyone loves us rather than living for Christ in such a way that everyone hates us. I know I don't feel especially hated. I must be doing something wrong. Yes, I've heard the conspiracies about the warehouses in upstate New York (or California or Wyoming or wherever) filled with guillotines so that the U.N. can more easily dispatch American Christians when the time comes. That scenario is not nearly as scary as the one where U.N. operatives under control of the antichrist can just let the guillotine blades rust because there's no one left in North America who still believes in Christ enough to warrant losing a head.

Let's face facts—we're not ready. The American Church is about as prepared to be martyred as it is to be fêted by the homosexual lobby. Can't remember the last time any noted Christian conference speaker (in front of a crowd that paid $300 each to hear him) delivered a message on how to be a martyr for Jesus Christ. Better to save that money for the latest iPod!

Voice of the Martyrs

Prisoner Alert

The Barnabas Fund

Open Doors Ministries

{Image: detail from The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1883}

Grieving Answers to Prayer

Standard

Then [Job's] wife said to him, "Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die." But he said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?" In all this Job did not sin with his lips.
—Job 2:9-10 ESV

I came back from the men's retreat I was on this weekend, but I did not return as I had hoped. Instead, I came back home weeping on the inside.
Grief
This is not the fault of the good men I grew closer to this weekend, but it has everything to do with the knowledge that even in the midst of good company, people truly do grieve alone. And I'd be lying if I claimed I was not grieving.

How long I've been grieving is a more difficult assessment. Or even what I'm grieving. Grief doesn't always announce itself or its intentions, we just know it's there, brooding. However, having the opportunity to get away and think a little may have jarred loose a few answers to both questions of "How long?" and "What?"

I'm grieving answers to prayer.

I'll say right away that you won't find a doctrine on this anywhere in the Scriptures. If you're the kind of person who detests what you might perceive as extrabiblical conjecture, then reading on will only anger you, so better stop right here and skip to another post. For anyone else, all I ask of you is to listen with the Spirit.

Anyone would think another a fool for grieving those answers to prayer that led to sustained blessings, and he'd be right. What's hard is dealing with answers to prayer that resulted in a firm No. Harder still is the answer that led to blessings that were later taken away before they bore fruit.

The accident that renders the promising athlete a quadriplegic. The new husband who loses his bride to an aneurysm only a month after their wedding. The career dream that was reached, only to be snatched away. The ministry that failed. The stillborn child.

We grieve them, don't we? Olympic glory. A love built for the future. The dream we put our sweat into all these years. The heeded call of God put into action. The child of hope. Once they seemed so beautiful in our thoughts and prayers, but what now? There is only grief.

It's popular in many Christian circles to counsel people that it's perfectly fine to get mad at God. But what of Job's response? He called such advice foolish and did not sin with his lips by giving in to such hellish temptation. Grief, though, was permitted, and so he grieved in the sackcloth of his acquired poverty and the ashes of his dreams.

Job's question is a penetrating one: Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil? As for me, I believe Job is right, but I must also believe that grief is allowed when the prayers of the righteous result in something other than their intentions.

I was once told the story of a teen who was one of those extraordinary few who God revealed the purposes of her life. He gave her an enormous burden for the African people, so much so that her whole heart was given to missions at a young age. Upon graduating from high school, she worked hard to raise support and was richly blessed by the many people who loved her and caught her vision. When she was selected to join a team going to the African interior, the joy was palpable. She boarded the plane, set foot in Africa, and promptly died from a fever within days.

As far as anyone knows, she never got to share the message of Christ with anyone there. Thousands had prayed for her, hoped for her, and supported her. But what of all those prayers?

I used to think there was always a lesson in happenings like this, but I'm not certain I do any longer. Some things just are and perhaps all we can do is grieve those answers to prayer that we do not understand. I know people who have driven their faith into the ground looking for a lesson from some horrid injustice that pierced them, but what if there is no lesson other than the way of suffering? What if grief is its own lesson?

Some things make no sense. I know that I reflexively must understand why something is the way it is. None of us says, "Thy will be done!" easily, particularly when that will seemed to lead to ruin. Why did that bright girl with a heart as big as the world start and end her journey the same week? My only response is grief for a prayer answered in a way I cannot comprehend.

We in our household appear to be receiving an extra portion of these questions whose only answer is grief. The way of the cross? I would like to think so. Maybe this is the ultimate meaning and source for that manner of grief, but like a fog it rolls in and obscure everything else before burning off in a shimmering morning that paints diamonds on the grass.

Let us accept good and endure evil. And may our faces be turned to the Son.

Joy

Standard

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places. To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.
—Habakkuk 3:17-19 ESV

JoyIf anyone were to ask me the one quality Christians routinely claim to have, but which is actually in short supply, I’d have to say it’s joy.

Ask a non-Christian what the most prevalent Christian trait is and you’re likely hear the word “indignation.” To them, Christians seem to be the perpetually put off, mad about one thing or another, but certainly not joyful.

From within the ranks of church people, some would note that fear is the trait shared by more Christians than anything else. For most of my Christian life the bestseller shelf at Christian bookstores have been packed with apocalyptic works that claim to know who the antichrist is or when the world will end, selling fear and worry. For all our talk of heaven, we sure worry an awful lot.

Some other Christians may say that love is the most common Christian trait, but then the folks answering that question treat love differently. The “tough love” people are those who like to use love like a crowbar, to influence others or even give them a rap on the noggin should they not conform to the Christian ideal. The other love camp consists of those who turn love into acceptance, never asking for more than blue skies, unicorns, and rainbows. Set those two groups of lovers against each other and see how well love holds up in the midst of their sparring over what love truly is.

But I don’t hear too many people offering joy as the end state of true Christian living. Too few Christians actually manifesting real joy may be the reason for joy being left out in the cold, and that is more than just a sad state of affairs; it’s an outright tragedy.

Jesus said to His disciples after they returned from their glorious time of ministry in their Master’s name:

Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
—Luke 10:19-20 ESV

Do we rejoice that our names are written in heaven? Or does our rejoicing come from accumulating money, sex, power, or the adulation of men?

I’ve heard many Christians say that the reason the Church in America is powerless is that too many Christians are satisfied with being saved and leave discipleship at that. We have a church geared to fire insurance only. But if this were the case, why the lack of Christians rejoicing that their names are written in heaven? Why so little talk of heaven at all? Does heaven hold no joy for us now?

From the pits of his heart, David speaks:

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.
—Psalms 51:10-12 ESV

David asks for nothing more be restored to him than the joy of salvation and a willingness to obey God. In the wallow of sin he created for himself, he desires the joy of his salvation over all other things. His humiliation was public, but he did not ask for his reputation back. Nor did he ask for the resurrection of his dead child. He wanted a deeper joy.

The sad truth of American Christianity is that our joy is found in the wrong things. Our material possessions count for more and create more joy in us than possessing Christ. Yet the prophet Habakkuk might stare at desolate fields, dead livestock, the slow wasting of his friends and family, and the loss of all he holds dear and say, “I am filled with the joy of the Lord. His joy makes me carry on.”

Joy has been relegated to a low position today in the hearts of too many Christians. We’ve confused it for happiness, one of the reasons we chase after things—for the temporary happiness they bring. But joy does not burn up in house fires, nor on the pyres that claimed more than one martyr for Jesus Christ. You can’t manufacture it or pretend you have it. It’s either present or it’s not.

In the midst of the fear that many are feeling today, do you have joy? Do you know the joy of your salvation? Does that joy trump all worry, fear, and anxiety?

We have to have the right priorities now. How well we will function in the days that are coming is a measure of the joy that is within us. It should be infectious. It should draw people to Jesus. It should strengthen us. If that’s not you, what better time than now to ask the Lord for an irrepressible joy in your life that cannot be altered by shifting circumstances out of your control?

Lord Jesus, make my joy full today, no matter my circumstance, that people may see your joy in my life and ask me about its source. Make me the fount of joy that pours Your joy into the life of others, that my joy be full and overflowing. When barrenness surrounds me, Jesus, let there be your abundant joy. Let me continue to look to eternity and see my name written in your Book of Life, the reason for my joy today. When all around me are filled with worry, may my joy be complete in you. For your glory always, I pray this in your name. Amen.