“Remember, O Lord, how your servants are mocked,

and how I bear in my heart the insults of all the many nations,

with which your enemies mock, O Lord,

with which they mock the footsteps of your anointed.”

– Psalm 89:50-51

Following the Lord has never been easy or popular. If it is, then you’re likely missing something important! As followers of Jesus Christ, we should assume that the “social cost” of that will increase dramatically in the years ahead. There will be more ridicule, more opposition, and more cancellation of those who hold to the historic truths of the Christian faith.

Christian, pray for God to prepare your heart for rejection by family and friends, to thicken your skin, and to strengthen your faith! Now is the time for you as a follower of Christ to truly understand who you are:

• A new creation in Christ – who you once were is gone!
• A beloved child of God – regardless of how others treat you
• Rooted and defined by Christ – not popular approval, labels, or categories
• A citizen of heaven first and foremost
• An ambassador of Christ – representing Him to a foreign and hostile world
• The recipient of an eternal inheritance in heaven that can’t ever be taken away

Remember that God is with you, you are in Christ, and the Holy Spirit is sealing, strengthening, and transforming you!

“Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean. For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died.” – Romans 14:13-15

Paul explains a critical – though often ignored – Christian principle in Romans 14 and 15. Many battles in church life stem from misunderstanding this principle, as do many of the casualties who eventually drop out of church altogether. Here’s the principle: in Christ, we’re free to do many things, but we should always be willing to set that freedom down for the well-being of another Christian who disagrees with us.

This isn’t about the doctrines and truths of the faith. Those must never be compromised. This is about matters of taste and preference. Christians are often ready to battle, to the death, over personal freedoms. Common examples from the past century include not wearing face coverings, listening to any kind of music privately, dressing extremely casually for worship, and drinking alcohol. When we engage in these battles, we can be 100% right about what we’re free to do, but in the process break down the faith of a less mature or sophisticated Christian. In that case, we’re 100% wrong! Jesus modeled this principle for us. He was able to summon an angel army to avoid going to the cross. However, out of love, He surrendered that freedom and His life so that we could be saved from our sins. As followers of Jesus, we’re called to lay down our liberty for the spiritual well-being of other believers. When our heated arguments for Christian liberty really just become about us and doing whatever we like, we’ve already lost, because following Christ is never all about us, it’s about lovingly and freely submitting to one another. That’s our higher freedom!

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.” – Romans 13:1-2

What does a Christian’s responsibility and freedom look like when he or she doesn’t agree with something the government requires? This is a very timely question! In general, Christians must submit to whatever the government requires unless that mandate violates God’s commands in Scripture.

God appoints and is sovereign over local, state/provincial, and national governments. He even permits ungodly and wicked governments to exist for a time and uses them to accomplish His greater purpose! Thus every Christian is commanded to submit to the government’s rules and laws, except for those which violate God’s rules and laws.

That’s the key criterion for determining what we must and must not obey. For example, Christians are commanded to worship and we’re commanded to sing. Regardless of what the government commands, we must worship and we must sing! On the other hand, the Bible doesn’t give instruction on how close to sit or whether faces should be covered. Thus Christians must follow government requirements, even if we don’t like or agree with them.

As Christians, we can discuss and debate those policies with which we disagree but which don’t violate Scripture. We can petition, protest, campaign, pursue legal action, and lobby for change. We can seek elected office to bring about change. But until that change happens, we must also submit.

“If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” – Romans 12:18

Can you even imagine how different the world would be if every Christian actually tried to follow this simple command? How different our nation would be? How different social media would be?

“If possible”. What would happen if we did everything imaginable just to live peaceably with everyone of every race, ethnicity, nationality, and faith? To treat each person we encounter with dignity, love, and respect as someone made in the image of God? Not “if we prefer”, not “if it’s easy”, not “if we like them”, but “if possible”. Living peaceably is far more possible than we think, we just seldom want to do the hard work and make the personal sacrifices required to make peace possible.

“So far as it depends on you”. Yes, people will provoke, criticize, harass, and attack us. We live in a fallen world full of sinners like us. There are other Scriptures to guide in these cases. But in most situations we have a fundamental choice: will we satisfy ourselves and escalate conflict, or will we please Christ and pursue genuine peace? We’re very good at blaming others for the conflicts surrounding and involving us. In our minds, others are 90-100% responsible for the problem. However, responsibility is often far more evenly divided and Jesus told us to deal with our part first before even beginning to talk about the other person’s issues (Matthew 7:3-5). Do everything in your power to make peace!

“Live peaceably with all”. Christ commands us to live peaceably with everyone if at all possible. He does not command or encourage us to “get ours”, nor to “look after number one”, nor to demand the respect “we deserve”. We are to actively and intentionally pursue peace. We have been given the ministry of reconciliation and we are to pursue reconciliation! With everyone!

It won’t always happen, we won’t always be successful, but if Christians seriously and consistently made the effort, this fallen world would be a different place and those who don’t know Christ would be seriously intrigued by those “weird peace-making Christians”.

“They received help against these enemies because they cried out to God in battle, and the Hagrites and all their allies were handed over to them. He was receptive to their prayer because they trusted in him.” – 1 Chronicles 5:20

Life is full of battles – this year more than most! We battle against illness, death, fear, loneliness, anger, anxiety, injustice, recession, inertia… We battle against spiritual forces and worldly forces. We battle against trials and temptations. This is true in our individual lives and in our collective life as the body of Christ.

During these battles, difficult as they may be, we must remember that as people who’ve trusted in the Lord through faith in Jesus Christ, God hears our prayers and is receptive to them. He honors and delights in our prayers. And He answers our prayers in the way that is ultimately best, even when that’s hard to understand.

We should never hesitate to cry out to God in the midst of our battles. He will hear us. And He will give us victory. Sometimes it’s a victory here on earth against that particular foe. Sometimes it’s the victory and rest we’ll enjoy forever in His presence once we pass on to glory. Either way, victory is assured, for we know the end of the story!