The notion that we enter the Christian life by an act of acceptance is true, but that is not all the truth. There is much more to it than that. Christianity involves an acceptance and a repudiation, an affirmation and a denial. And this not only at the moment of conversion but continually thereafter day by day in all the battle of life till the great conflict is over and the Christian is home from the wars.
To live a life wholly positive is, fortunately, impossible. Were any man able to do such a thing it could only be for a moment. Living positively would be like inhaling continuously without exhaling. Aside from its being impossible, it would be fatal. Exhalation is as necessary to life as inhalation To accept Christ it is necessary that we reject whatever is contrary to Him.
This is a fact often overlooked by eager evangelists bent on getting results. Like the salesman who talks up the good points of his product and conceals its disadvantages, the badly informed soul-winner stresses the positive side of things at the expense of the negative. Let us not be shocked by the suggestion that there are disadvantages to the life in Christ. There most certainly are.
Abel was murdered, Joseph was sold into slavery, Daniel was thrown into the den of lions, Stephen was stoned to death, Paul was beheaded, and a noble army of martyrs was put to death by various painful methods all down the long centuries. And where the hostility did not lead to such violence (and mostly it did not and does not) the sons of this world nevertheless managed to make it tough for the children of God in a thousand cruel ways. Everyone who has lived for Christ in a Christless world has suffered some losses and endured some pains that he could have avoided by the simple expedient of laying down his cross.
However, the pains are short and the losses inconsequential compared with the glory that will follow, “for our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” But while we are here among men with our sensitive hearts exposed to the chilly blasts of the unbelieving and uncomprehending world it is imperative that we take a realistic view of things and learn how to deal with disadvantages. And it is important that we tell the whole truth to those we are endeavouring to win.
The astute Mark Twain once pointed out that some churches actually fail to gain members because they make the way too easy, and conversely the church that is hard to get into is the one that is likely to prosper numerically. The 14 experienced missionary knows that the book or Scripture portion that is given away free will be less valued by the receiver than if a small price had been paid for it. And the higher the price the more precious the possession. Our Lord called men to follow Him but He never made the way look easy. Indeed one gets the distinct impression that He made it appear extremely hard.
Sometimes He said things to disciples or prospective disciples that we today discreetly avoid repeating when we are trying to win men to Him. What presentday evangelist would have the courage to tell an inquirer, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it?” And do we not do some tall explaining when someone asks us what Jesus meant when He said, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter –in-law against her mother-in-law?” That kind of rugged, sinewy Christianity is left for an occasional missionary or for some believer behind one of the various curtains.
The masses of professed Christians simply do not have the moral muscle to enable them to take a path so downright and final as this. The contemporary moral climate does not favour a faith as tough and fibrous as that taught by our Lord and His apostles. The delicate, brittle saints being produced in our religious hothouses today are hardly to be compared with the committed, expendable believers who once gave their witness among men. And the fault lies with our leaders. They are too timid to tell the people all the truth. They are now asking men to give to God that which cost them nothing.
Our churches these days are filled(or one-quarter filled) with a soft breed of Christian that must be fed on a diet of harmless fun to keep them interested. About theology they know little. Scarcely any of them have read even one of the great Christian classics, but most of them are familiar with religious fiction and spinetingling gospel films. No wonder their moral and spiritual constitution is so frail. Such can only be called weak adherents of a faith they never really understood.
When will Christians learn that to love righteousness it is necessary to hate sin? That to accept Christ it is necessary to reject self? That to follow the good way we must flee from evil? That a friend of the world is an enemy of God? That God allows no twilight zone between two altogethers where the fearful and the doubting may take refuge at once from hell to come and the rigours of present discipline? – The Earnest Christian
WITHOUT CHRIST IS TO BE WITHOUT A HOPE TO CHEER, WITHOUT A PILOT TO STEER, WITHOUT A FRIEND TO COUNSEL, WITHOUT GRACE TO SUSTAIN, WITHOUT HEAVEN TO WELCOME US, AND WITHOUT A GOD TO CONSOLE. (A.W. Tozer)