The Way Back - Get Your Christian Life Back On TrackSample

Mystery #7: Suffering

    For most of Christianity’s history, persecution has been part of life, but in the West, the idea of suffering for the gospel is virtually unknown. But it’s not a coincidence that in parts of the world where persecution still exists, people there are on fire to share the gospel of Jesus. This is a quality they share with the earliest Christians, who were so aligned with Jesus that they were honored to suffer as He did. 

    Across the pages of the Bible and throughout history, there is a direct correlation between evangelism and persecution. But in most modern Christian circles, evangelism is dead. We’ve stopped sharing the story of Jesus. We have gone silent as a tradeoff to avoid any sort of discrimination or discomfort - and it is to our everlasting shame.

    Back in the 1940s, English crime writer Dorothy Sayers warned of a fast-approaching church that would be too comfortable and tolerant to make any waves:

    “In the world it calls itself tolerance; but in hell it is called despair. . . . It is the sin    that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, loves nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive only because there is nothing it would die for.”

    The Bible is not kinder. In John’s vision in the book of Revelation, Jesus says to the   church in Laodicea:

    “Because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my   mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.” (Revelation 3:16–18)

    Here the way back encounters a deep and dangerous crevasse—one that can only be overcome when the exponential power of all these powerful principles are put into practice. 

    To live these mysteries—to choose the transformed life and share the message of Jesus—is to embrace the eventuality of suffering.

    How can I suffer? You can’t. You can only be ready when the time comes by deepening your faith through the other six mysteries. All of them working together in tandem are the call of Jesus that radically transformed the world two thousand years ago, and it can do it again today. It is the path back to the miraculous, where the spiritually crippled see our example, believe, then pick up their mat and follow in our steps. These ancient values are the keys that unlock the ability to lovingly confound and convict an uninterested and hostile culture. 

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, thank you for starting me down the path of these seven mysteries. Surrender, Scripture, Submission, Service, Sacrifice, Simplicity, and – if and when You determine I’m ready – Suffering. I have much to learn, but I will walk in the footsteps of those fellow travelers who have gone before me, and I will do it all in Your holy name. Amen.