The High Cost Of Being Faithful To Christ
Remember when Jesus warned us we would have trouble? He meant it
Maybe you’re one of the folks who has told himself the pretty little lie that only the big names in ministry ever pay a price for faith in Christ. Well, that’s a lie.
Do you know that the very first person killed for his faith in Jesus wasn’t Peter, James, John or one of the apostles. He wasn’t a headline preacher, or a famous prophet.
He was a deacon. Literally, a waiter.
That’s right, his role in the church wasn’t arguing theology with Jerusalem’s upper crusties. He worked in the mercy ministries at his church. Literally, his job was feeding the poor. Deacon is a greek word that roughly translates into ‘waiter’. I’m sorry does that mess with your tidy little Precious Moments, ‘best-life-now’ idea of Christianity?
Good. Because it was a false promise to begin with, meant to lull Christians into complacency.
If you’re living into Christ’s call on your life, you can’t help but ruin El Diablo’s day. And when you ruin his… he’ll do his best to return the favor. Like he did with Stephen.
But Stephen stood up with boldness and said the hard truths the religious leaders of his day refused to hear. They killed him for it, but that act of boldness changed history, and the heart of an enemy of Christ who later converted and went on to write a huge part of the New Testament.
Here’s the original art by Doug Giles depicting the stoning of Stephen, as described in Acts 7:54-60.
You can pick your favorite link below to click through to Doug’s art site and look at the art itself.
The original painting…
The limited editions…
or the open edition prints.