We Christians seem to like to take ownership of others actions. If a missionary is killed in South American we say that proves that we are suffering and dying for Jesus Christ. Somehow or another that death gets attached to our individual selves as if we were the ones who died.
We just can’t live vicariously through other. We are each responsible for our own actions. The only exception to that is Christ being a redeeming sacrifice for all of us before God that is memorialized today. As I have mentioned in the past I don’t really understand that idea but Jesus made it clear that that was one of the reasons he came to earth. I will take him at his word on that and mourn his crucifixion in my place and, of course, I will celebrate his resurrection on Sunday.
Just because some die in a foreign country trying to promote Christianity does not mean that we are likewise sacrificing for Christ. We must all take up our individual crosses in the name of Jesus. There is certainly an enormous amount of work that needs to be done in this word in His name. He certainly gave us a multitude of possibilities and almost all of them revolve around being our brother’s keeper and loving even our enemies. If you sit back and do nothing you are diluting what it means to be a disciple of Christ. Those are strong words but I feel that must be said.
God gave us free will while we are on this earth and part of that means we are responsible for our actions or inactions.
