Imagine living in Germany during the rule of Adolph Hitler and publicly opposing his ideas and rule. That would be a dangerous business. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was safely inside the United States and chose to return to Germany in the days of Hitler to there represent what was true and just in opposition to Hitler’s rule. As a result, he was sentenced to death by hanging. Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor. His writings are available and are good and valuable reading.
I think that it is important for us to realize that we have a mission that is not at all unlike the mission that Bonhoeffer took on voluntarily. We are in a world that is increasingly unfriendly to Christ and a world whose leader (Satan, the god of this world) is caustic to the ideas of Christ and His people. We are not here to gain friends but rather to represent Christ. Notice this observation of Christ:
John 15:18-19
If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
The world is not and never will be friendly to the truth and to the things of God. And it is the truth and the things of God that we have been chosen to represent. I have been thinking in the last days of how costly this is to those who have taken on professions in this world of a more public variety. If your job is selling groceries or building houses you just don’t experience a lot of exposure. However, if you serve in a public position as a mayor, police chief, or a senator your duties as a Christian can be very costly. It causes me to have greater appreciation for those who sit in those places and to pray for them.
We all know believers who have such positions, let us commit to pray often and with regularity for them.
