Over the past many years, there have a been a handful of Hollywood movies where the main characters are born into an artificial environment and then, for some reason are thrust back into reality. The movie then focuses on their coming to terms with what is actually reality, as opposed to what they thought was reality.
This is us. Being born in to the 21st century culture of the USA, we are swimming in mediocrity and do not even realize it. We, our parents, our grandparents and possibly our great grandparents have been immersed in, surrounded by and having fully imbibed, modern culture, that we know no different. But there is something different.
There are pockets of faith in which some few people live. I just watched a video of an eight year old girl, a survivor of the Coptic bus shooting in Egypt. A bus load of Coptic Christians was recently surrounded by four truckloads of Muslim terrorists. The terrorists proceeded to try to force these Christians to denounce their faith and declare Allah as God and Mohammed as his prophet. They refused and were immediately shot. The little girl survived and told the story of how no one on the bus renounced their faith, how they had been faithful and subsequently died as martyrs.
I have to wonder how many Christians in America would do the same. How many of us, when we go silent in the face of mockery against God, against his clergy, and against his church, would dare to pronounce faith in Jesus Christ in the face of an automatic weapon?
We are swimming in mediocrity, comfort and ease and we know no different. I often think (and really try to take to heart) that living in the face of danger and demands for faith is better, even when that demand may require our martyrdom.
This is us. Being born in to the 21st century culture of the USA, we are swimming in mediocrity and do not even realize it. We, our parents, our grandparents and possibly our great grandparents have been immersed in, surrounded by and having fully imbibed, modern culture, that we know no different. But there is something different.
There are pockets of faith in which some few people live. I just watched a video of an eight year old girl, a survivor of the Coptic bus shooting in Egypt. A bus load of Coptic Christians was recently surrounded by four truckloads of Muslim terrorists. The terrorists proceeded to try to force these Christians to denounce their faith and declare Allah as God and Mohammed as his prophet. They refused and were immediately shot. The little girl survived and told the story of how no one on the bus renounced their faith, how they had been faithful and subsequently died as martyrs.
I have to wonder how many Christians in America would do the same. How many of us, when we go silent in the face of mockery against God, against his clergy, and against his church, would dare to pronounce faith in Jesus Christ in the face of an automatic weapon?
We are swimming in mediocrity, comfort and ease and we know no different. I often think (and really try to take to heart) that living in the face of danger and demands for faith is better, even when that demand may require our martyrdom.
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