If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it. – Matthew 10:39 (NLT)
Fear. It is a word that literally makes us feel afraid. We can fear many things during our lifetime but one of the biggest in today’s society is becoming a Christian.
Most people have their own pre-conceived ideas and thoughts of what it is all about. Some of these ideas and thoughts can come from the church, the media and what other people tell us. Wherever we get our ideas and thoughts from, we end with an image of what we think God, Jesus, the church, and Christians are all about and for some people it is something to be very, very afraid of.
Fearing God and Christianity is something that is growing more and more in today’s world. People get on the defensive when anything remotely Christian pops its head up. They react by trying to tell others everything that they perceive to be wrong about Christians and the church and at times this reaction can become abusive. Their words become more hateful as they continue to defend their non-Christian way of life.
Attacking Christians and the life they lead is something some non-Christians do with relish. They give all sorts of reasons why being a Christian can be one of the worse things to be in this world. Their knowledge and understanding of what happens when you become a Christian can vary from person to person. For some, it can be giving up all the good things in life (e.g. having fun) and becoming a boring person who can only do certain things.
In other words, the one thing most non-Christians fear losing if they accept Jesus into their lives is their life. Living your life, the way you want to and not being told how you should live it is one of the most fundamentals rights that humans have. If we don’t want to give up the life we are leading, then anything that speaks of taking this right away is a very fearful proposition.
This threat to our way of life causes our fear mechanisms to kick in and we react accordingly. We want to cling to our life because we are afraid to let someone else have control. Even though we think we know what God and Christianity are all about, deep down we somehow know that there are many things we don’t know, including what happens when we give control of our life to God. Fear of the unknown is perhaps one of the major reasons why people don’t accept Jesus.
There is so much we don’t know about God, how He works and the future He has for us. The future itself can be a scary thought at times but a future without God can be even scarier. The Bible tells us one thing we can be certain of is that holding onto our lives is the sure-fire way to lose it. If we don’t accept Jesus, we will ultimately lose everything. It takes a brave person to overcome their fears of the unknown and to give their life to God.
In the whole scheme of eternity, sometimes you must be a loser in order to be a winner.
Originally published at Inspirational Christian Blogs – August 2016