what would we do?

Acts 7


51 "You stubborn people! You are heathen at heart and deaf to the truth. Must you forever resist the Holy Spirit? That's what your ancestors did, and so do you! 52 Name one prophet your ancestors didn't persecute! They even killed the ones who predicted the coming of the Righteous One—the Messiah whom you betrayed and murdered. 53 You deliberately disobeyed God's law, even though you received it from the hands of angels."

  54 The Jewish leaders were infuriated by Stephen's accusation, and they shook their fists at him in rage. 55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily into heaven and saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God's right hand. 56 And he told them, "Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing in the place of honor at God's right hand!"

  57 Then they put their hands over their ears and began shouting. They rushed at him 58 and dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. His accusers took off their coats and laid them at the feet of a young man named Saul.

  59 As they stoned him, Stephen prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." 60 He fell to his knees, shouting, "Lord, don't charge them with this sin!" And with that, he died.


As I read this section about the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, I wondered what I would do if faced with certain death simply because I believed Jesus was the Messiah.

What would you do?

Considering how willy-nilly, wishy-washy - let's call it what it is: cowardly - we can be in our prissy, precious little easy street lives, I just wonder if we'd have the guts to stand up to that kind of evil, no matter if it cost us our lives through a rather ugly way to die? Stoning is up there in the 10 ten worst ways to be killed - it's pretty brutal.


Furthermore, how many of us could ask the Lord to forgive them as we were being killed?!

Is our faith in Jesus just part of our lives, or is our relationship the very essence of our liives, the core of who we are, there is nothing - nothing - that would cause us to make something even as important to us as our very existence less important than our connection with Him.


But how many times a day do we already put something, or someone, more important to us than our relationship to Jesus? How many secret sins do we harbor, or missed opportunities to be or do what He wants us to do or be do we ignore?

Think about it...