21 brothers murdered

Odds are you have seen some sort of coverage concerning the killing of 21 Christians in Egypt by a group of militants.  Whether your CNN app sent you a notification or FOX news broke the headline while you were eating your toast and drinking your coffee yesterday morning, or maybe you saw one of the many Instagram posts about it.  Whatever the source of your notification, no doubt you were horrified at the news especially if you find yourself believing in the same God as the 21 men who left this earth to join that great cloud of witnesses we hear about in the book of Hebrews.

I have noticed a few posts on the internet with people talking about their sadness over the murders.  No doubt we Christians are done with allowing these atrocities to take place in our world any longer.  We American Christians are probably home drawing diagrams and connecting the dots that lead from declining church numbers to declining voter turnout to raising liberal influence in American schools to mass murders of Christians by Muslim leaders on the steps of government buildings by the year 2025.

While I do feel these killings were unfortunate and horrifying for the families of these 21 innocent men, I also know these men were greeted with open arms by Jesus Himself in Heaven.  I know that these 21 men will receive a reward far greater than most of us could ever imagine.  Paul said "to die is gain but to live is Christ..."  These 21 men have received their reward, they received their "gain".

So many times that the church has seen persecution, especially in the Bible, the Gospel and the faith of Jesus was spread at rates and with power that could never be duplicated without the persecution first taking place.  There is something about seeing members of your family murdered on CNN that drives the living family members together.  Here's a clue, we are the remaining family members of those 21 men.  Those were our brother that were killed.  Those were our brother who lost their heads in Egypt.

How will we honor their legacy?  How can we honor their sacrifice?  These men laid down their lives because of what they believed in, because they believed in a Jesus that lived to die for their freedom and salvation.  

The major concern and question in the midst of these modern day martyrs is how will we, the American church respond?  I take that back, how will each individual Christian respond?  Will we take to social media and post about our sadness with some contrived verse?  Will we possibly structure the next sermon about the raise of Muslim faith in America and how we must defend the Bible by increasing our giving or getting prayer back in schools?

Can we all just agree that there is more?  There is more than news headlines and Sunday mornings.  The fact is that we are falling behind in our purpose and our responsibility as a family of saints who are responsible for spreading the Gospel of Jesus everywhere we go.  There is more than our "you can do it" tag lines and rhyming quotes.  There is a beauty, a power, a real love, a miraculous God who is wanting to make Himself alive and real to a multitude of people in our communities who don't know He really exists.  All we need is to get out of our homes, our jobs, our groups of friends, and our churches and go out to spread that Love, that Power, that Freedom, and that Healing with so many who need Him.  That is how we can honor our brothers who have passed into their Heavenly place with Jesus.