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Who is a Martyr? A Christian martyr is one who gives up one’s life as a witness to the Gospel of Christ. In the traditional sense, martyrdom used to imply persecution necessarily resulting in death because you are a witness to the Gospel or you refuse to renounce your belief of Christ.

As Christians, we are all called by Christ to be martyrs – to face persecution because of him, and to even die in the process of proclaiming and/or being a witness to the Gospel. If you have not agreed to this, then you are not a Christian. Because our acceptance of Christ’s Cross is the symbol of our Christianity; the Cross in turn signifies suffering and sacrifice till the end. No Cross, no crown!

But do Christians today give our lives for Christ? Maybe in few places where a handful of (blessed) missionaries are persecuted and, in rare cases, killed while proclaiming the Gospel. But what about the rest of us who are living peacefully and worshiping comfortably in our homes and churches? Where do we look for the cross that we must bear, the persecution and the supposed death that we must be willing to go through for Christ?

With the passage of time, the persecutions seen by our forefathers – eviction from their villages, ostracization etc. – no longer exist today. However, in its place, a new kind of persecution and a new kind of ostracization is still very much alive. But the modern threat to Christianity is not at all aggressive on the outside. No one will discriminate you for being a Christian (in name). In fact being a ‘Christian’ is beneficial in many ways. As a Christian, you are a part of the 2,200 million strong people following the largest religion in the world. Well then, where is the persecution?

The attack on Christians today is not through direct challenge. We cannot expect Satan to use the same weapon he used in Rome when the first of believers were threatened, tortured and killed in the most gruesome manner. The world and it’s people change, so do Satan and his tactics.

We are called to be Christ’s witness in our daily lives. Simple as it may sound, it is not so. When you look into every aspect of your daily life, you will find that your faithfulness in Christ is being compromised on every count. We spend most of our time in pursuit of our own goals (which are very fleeting indeed) . The Gospel that we preach and listen to in churches have no place in our government offices, in the street, and in our college hostels. We unknowingly join religions (Christianity is not one, it is the TRUTH) in believing that our God will deliver us from illness, hardships and give us peace so that we may live happily ever after in this world. This is why religions today are being pursued by people – to benefit their worldly life, to help them lead a successful and enjoyable life – on EARTH. Christian readers, we are called ‘not to value’ the things of the world, we are not to build and accumulate treasures on earth or seek peace and glory in it. We are to hope for a new place, a new Jerusalem where Christ has promised us to take with him to live forever.

Satan is using pollution of the mind to eliminate Christ from the mind of believers. Resisting and rejecting this is what I call – MODERN DAY MARTYRDOM. The things that we feel we need to know – the news, the fashion trends, the electronic gadgets, the technology, new ideologies – are all weapons of Satan to occupy the minds of our young people 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. As a result our youth no longer have the time or the inclination to let Christ and his Word into their minds, thoughts and souls. Anything that you do which do not lead you to the path of Heaven will lead you away from it.

The generation today may not feel this threat as imminent. But slowly and surely the waves of dilution and compromise is seeping into the very core of our Christian families. Parents, for fear of not catching up with the rat race allow their children far more liberties than Christ would have liked. How many parents can boast of not sending their children to a certain school or place because their child might not be brought up in the ways of the Lord? How many parents today will deny their child access to computer because most of his/her time on the computer is spent on games, social networking and pornography? Should a Christian child not be brought up to respect his/her time, read the bible, and pursue being close to God as if his/her life depended on it (yes! our very lives depend on our communion with God). The first Psalm with which we’re very familiar says this about a believer – “…but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.”

A Christian should always be in fear of straying from the Lord’s ways more than anything else. As apostle Paul says ‘if what I eat causes my brother(anyone)to fall,’ I must be willing to give up whatever it is that I eat. This is martyrdom, this is sacrifice! and what a small one at that! But it is one we, nevertheless, are often unwilling to make. If I may lose out on better education for my child because of my following the Word of God, thereby not finding that place conducive to his spiritual growth, then I might as well give up the ‘better’ school and send my  child to an ‘inferior’ school where I feel my child will get a better spiritual guidance. This is how we are called to be Martyrs. If my being firm with my children and disciplining them in the ways of the Lord results in their not liking me or, being angry with me the whole time, so be it. If I speak out the truth in the community so as to make someone to mend his/her ways, but in the bargain I am being hated or slandered, SO BE IT. Why are we so caught up in thinking what others will think? It is high time that we start to make our decisions while thinking what the Lord will think? Are we willing to call ourselves Christians before the eyes of the Lord and take up such a cross? Are we willing to loose this diluted Christian life, be a martyr, and start a life which is alien to the ways of the world.

The Mizo Christianity (or rather Modern Christianity) is so full of compromises that we no longer have the courage or the inclination to speak according to the scripture. A true Christian not only does not take what is not entitled to him, he also has the courage to rebuke or show disapproval in people who do such a thing. Corruption is prevalent in Mizoram because our so called ‘faithful’ do not want to bear the cross of fighting against it. Our ‘Christianness’ is diluted to such an extent that without persuasion (their own free will), the Mizo youth are turning to atheism, Hinduism, and worship of Satan. We need to look into our homes and how we run our home and family, and weed out all those that are undesirable to Christ. You would be surprised to see how many things in your daily routine need to be sacrificed! Yes, you are right. All of them, even the ones that you feel might not earn you favor from members of your family (especially teenagers), or your close friends. Some things may not look or sound evil at all, but they will slowly lead you and your family astray, away from the Lord. For example, if you feel (and I strongly feel, speaking for myself) your television is not giving you a worshipping atmosphere, throw it out. Safeguard your faith and communion with God first and everything else must be secondary to this.

If social acceptance and conformity is what we value more than Christ’s teachings, then it would be sad but true to say that we are not ‘faithful’. Remember, ‘no Cross, no Crown’. The Christians today may not be called to lay down their lives amidst threat and torture; but we are definitely called to be Martyrs, sacrificing what we think is acceptable for what is right and pleasing in the eyes of the Lord. What have I sacrificed for the Lord? – is the question everyone must ask themselves. If not, on the Judgment Day it would be the Lord Himself asking ‘I sacrificed my life for you, what have you sacrificed for me?’

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This entry was posted on Sunday, November 13th, 2011 at 3:45 pm and is filed under Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.