Andrew Brunson, the American pastor who was held in prison in Turkey for over two years, was recently released. Speaking of his ordeal, he commented that: “Sometimes it’s harder to live for God than to die for God”. [1]
We honor those who are martyred for their faith and rightly so. However, dying for our faith is a short term event; it is an event that is over relatively quickly.
Living for our faith is a life time event. If, like Paul we are called to serve “the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials” (Acts 20:19 ESV), it can seem as if our trials and hardships will go on for a lifetime. Being human, we want these events to end but God calls us to persevere (James 1:12).
This principle also applies to our salvation and it is why we have maintained in this blog that salvation is not a one-time event but a process that lasts a lifetime. Salvation is not a one-time confession of faith but a lifetime of putting that faith into practice on a daily basis.
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[1] Mindy Belz. “A Living Martyr”. World Magazine, November 24, 2018, p. 38.
