Living Martyrs

but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses   Acts 1:8

Witnesses – You and I are called to be martus; martyrs in the cause of Christ.  In fact, the purpose of the church is to be a witness to the world.  The church does not exist to make the world a better place, to improve human life, to be the training ground for ethics or to bring peace to warring people.  The church exists to be a witness to Jesus.  All the rest is by-product.  Without the witness, the church is nothing more than a human-improvement league.  

Yesterday we discovered that the Greek word translated “witness” is martus from which we derive “martyr.”  There is a good reason for this relationship.  Early Christian martyrs were in fact witnesses to the reality of the Christ by maintaining their testimony even to the death. 

Our response to this call to be a martus is quite revealing.  Most of us are prepared to die for the truth.  We might even cast our eyes to heaven before the firing squad or the flames.  Martyrdom can be a glorious human act.  Heroes and heroines arise from the ashes.  But this is not what Jesus asks.  We are prepared to die as martyrs but we don’t want to live like martyrs.  If we have to suffer, let it be for glorious purposes.  Let the end come quickly.  Then we will step into heaven knowing that our legend lives on.  But to live like a martyr?  No, no way.  To go day after day, humbled, afflicted, rejected, disowned, cursed?  No, give me the nice quick death of glorious martyrdom, not the slow, daily walk in the shoes of the Man acquainted with grief.

Jesus does not ask us to die for Him.  He asks us to live as martyrs for Him.  That means the voluntary death of myself while I am still alive in a world that will harm me, scorn me, persecute me and hold me in contempt.  That is the life of a martus, a witness to another reality, to the facts of Jesus in a world that hated Him too.

What did you think Jesus meant when He said, “therefore the world hates you” (John 15:19).  Did you think John was kidding when he said, “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).  God is not interested in whether or not you are willing to die as a martyr.  If you do, it is because of His grace.  God is interested in whether or not you will live as a martyr. 

That choice is entirely up to you.