How many of us have the willingness to say and do the right thing regardless of the earthly consequences?
Having Christian courage is key to our walk.
God promises to help us, be with us, but still we fear and lack courage at times.
The pain we experience may be physical, as in war and rescue operations. Or the pain may be mental as in confrontation and controversy.
Courage is indispensable for both spreading and preserving the truth of Christ.
In Matthew 24:9 (Amplified Bible), Jesus promised that spreading the gospel would meet resistance: “Then they will hand you over to suffer affliction and tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.”
Therefore, true evangelism and true teaching of The Word will take courage.
Do we tell only the truths that are safe to tell?
Nobody respects a coward. We admire people who are courageous. In every movie that has a hero we admire, it is because of their courage. The bad guys nearly always turn out to be cowards.
Some of us can remember when we were still a kid in school and someone would dare us to do something dangerous. Some of us probably did some of the stupidest, most dangerous life threatening things we've ever done. Why? So that we wouldn’t be labeled with that dreaded word 'chicken'!
We wanted to come off in the eyes of our peers as courageous…not as a coward.
In our Christian walk, every one of us faces choices every day in which we come out either courageous or a coward. It takes a great deal of courage to face the daily challenges of life without becoming considered a wimp.
It takes enormous courage to be a Christian when most unbelieving people automatically despise you when you openly reveal that you are a person of faith in Jesus Christ.
Even though I am a journalist by trade, I can tell you the elite mainstream media in America hates Christians with a passion in terms that they are threatened by those who have an absolute moral standard and they punish them, belittle them, and try to discredit them at every opportunity.
But you know, it's doesn't matter what they say, or what they write about us as Christians. God knows our heart and he will get us through it all.
We must remain steadfast in our love for God and deserve to serve him by spreading the good news of God's salvation no matter what is said or written about us.
We must remain constant in our morals and stand up for what is right and confirmed in the Word of God.
An amazing amount of courage comes from settling in your heart and mind that our beliefs and values are right and line up with the Word of God.
We must humbly ask the Holy Spirit to give us understanding as we study and meditate on God's Word. We are strengthened when the rightness of our beliefs are reconfirmed in the experiences of everyday life.
We should increasingly feel and express our dependence on our Lord, ask Him to empower us and accomplish His purposes in us and through us in all we do and in all we face… and believe Him to do it. We will find ourselves living with the supernatural courage that only God can give May each of us learn to live with the courage God wants us to have.
Be blessed.
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