Ending the "Fight For It" Series
go4tli
Christian walk is, in many respects, like training to fight. Perhaps
most of all because this training goes against the grain in many areas
of the things we would instinctively consider good in life, by the
simple nature of *what training is*.
Consider what training to fight means in terms of simply doing what
God asks.
Even with something as simple as feeding the hungry. There's a reason
that "I am a man of wealth and taste" is different from "I am just a
poor boy, though my story's seldom told". The devil has already
picked his side in so-called "class warfare". And if we're really
fighters, it may well mean certain things about us, too.
(If that's not enough for you, consider places in Scripture where God
identifies *Himself* with the poor, e.g., Matthew 25:40,45; 2
Corinthians 8:9; Proverbs 19:17; and many others. And no, I don't
mean that you'll automatically be poor if you follow God -- just that
obeying God with respect to the poor is not a leisurely endeavor.)
In other words, doing right -- not merely avoiding wrong, but actually
*doing right* -- is hard. Training to fight is an excellent analogy.
I wonder how much we make doing right difficult even in our own ranks
because we like to rationalize that any pain suffered by doing right
will always be mitigated by some future reward. The right thing to do
may well be irrelevant to the promise of reward for it. Consider the
"Left Behind" series(1), in which there's a character who declares
that she'd rather watch her family starve than risk her soul by
getting the Mark of the Beast(2). Because as far as the authors are
concerned, if you take the Mark, you go to Hell. It's that simple.
So don't do it.
I find myself unable to sympathize. Don't take the Mark, and you're
talking about your family's *death by starvation*. Hell is
everlasting torment, and this character's response to her family in
facing that possibility is basically, "Guys, I love you, but not that
much".
Is there anyone you love so much, you'd go to Hell for them?
If so -- or even if you could *imagine* loving someone that much --
how can we realistically pretend that doing right is easy?
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(1) For those who know my position on these things: No, I haven't
suddenly decided that I agree with their view of the End Times, any
more than I suddenly decided that I *disagree* with their view of the
End Times. This is a mental exercise.
(2) Which, the authors have decided, is an actual, physical mark, in
spite of how forehead/back of the right hand marks are generally
treated in Scripture.