# If you love your life… Musings of a Missionary Language: en Author: by Barry Grant Titanyen, Haiti Original issue: The Heartbeat of The Remnant, Summer 2022, Number 2 Source pages: 4–6 Read article: Original PDF: Summer\-2022\-Remnant\.pdf [The Heartbeat of The Remnant, Summer 2022]() It’s been said that in the 1500s, after baptism, the Anabaptists lived an average of only 27 days\. They were hunted and killed\. They realized one thing—serving Christ would most certainly cost them everything\. They forsook the comforts of easy living; they forsook it all\. It could also have been a similar situation when Jesus walked on the earth, or shortly after He was killed\. *…and he turned, and said unto them, If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, **he cannot be my disciple\.** And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, **cannot be my disciple\.** For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish\. Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace\. So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, **he cannot be my disciple** –Luke 14:25\-33\.* Jesus clearly asked His disciples to count the cost\. And they must have counted the cost, for they faithfully gave all, including their lives, for Christ’s Kingdom\. They realized they could have had the good things in this life; however, they also realized it would cost them the good things in the next\. *Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution –2 Timothy 3:12\.* If we look at the promises which Jesus gave us in His Word about persecution, and then compare them with the lives of Jesus’ followers today, we might be confused\. And rightfully so\. *He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked –1 John 2:6\.* Jesus says we should walk as He walked, He also tells us that we need to follow Him\. How did He walk? We know that Jesus had no place to lay His head—this was how He wanted it\. We know that Jesus could have chosen to live where and how He wanted\. He was, in fact, in control of the whole world, yet He was despised and rejected by the world and its system\. When He spoke, people wanted to lay their hands on Him; they wanted to kill Him\. He was not a popular person; He had few friends\. In reality, He didn’t fit in, and He didn’t last long\. Three years after His ministry began, He was killed\. *…He was numbered with the transgressors –Mark 15:28\.* What about His followers today? Are they walking how He walked? And if not, why not? We read about the children of Israel going through the wilderness\. They fought and overtook the cities in their paths, killing all in the process\. We read many accounts about how God instructed the children of Israel to kill all of the enemy, even the women and children\. The following is one such account of many\. *So the LORD our God delivered into our hands Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his people: and we smote him until none was left to him remaining\. And we took all his cities at that time, there was not a city which we took not from them, threescore cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan\. All these cities were fenced with high walls, gates, and bars; beside unwalled towns a great many\. And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children, of every city –Deuteronomy 3:3\-6\.* We read accounts like this in scripture, and it can cause us to cringe\. It is almost as if life itself was not important\. Even in the New Testament, death doesn’t seem to be that big of a deal\. People lived and people died\. The first week after we moved to Haiti, I was driving through the city\. Suddenly, right in front of me I saw a man lying in the street\. Blood ran down the road and pooled in a low spot—he was dead\. I was shocked\. But what shocked me the most was that no one seemed to notice\. People by the hundreds busily walked around him, not even looking at the man—no one cared\. Over the next six years we saw many dead or dying people—it became a normal scene\. If that was how it was back in the Bible times, and it is still how it is today in many countries of the world, maybe we are the ones that are out of the norm? Maybe we esteem life higher than God does\. Maybe we are among those that Jesus spoke of when He said—*He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal –John 12:25\.* *In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return –Genesis 3:19\.* We were created out of the dust, and after a few short years, we return to the very same dust\. *Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow\. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away –James 4:14\.* The Bible also calls our lives a vapor\. We all know what happens after that—the judgment, then eternity\. So why do we care so much about this life? Maybe it is an American problem or a western problem\. It is obvious that Americans are looked upon as ‘more valuable’ than most other nationalities\. If you are an American in a developing country, you are heralded as a king\. If something happens to an American, it is quickly headline news\. I once stood over the bodies of two murdered men\. One of their close friends stood by, so I asked him how he was doing\. He shrugged and said, “This is life”\. So why does life mean so much to us Americans? The answer is simple\. We can obtain almost anything we want; money is easy to get, and we can live how we want\. We can live in pleasure every day\. We go to the store and buy what we want, when we want—we have it our way\. This is just how it is; for most of us it is all we have ever known—the life of plenty\. So how does this affect us? This type of living makes it especially hard to ‘give all’ for Christ\. It makes it difficult to obey Jesus’ command to *…Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature –Mark 16:15\.* It makes it difficult to say with the Apostle Paul, *For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain –Philippians 1:21\.* In reality, it makes it difficult to be a Christian\. When Jesus said… *For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it –Matthew 16:25*, what did He mean? Could it mean literally just what it says: that when you fall in love with your own life, you cannot effectively follow Christ, so that in the end you will actually lose your life? Can you go to the lost and forsake the comforts of this life if it’s those comforts that you love and live for? It’s not likely\. What we have is “Americanized” Christians that will only go to the mission field if they can take their comforts with them\. This produces rich, comfortable missionaries who, despite their best efforts, can’t win the lost, rather they make them jealous\. Can we go into the cities and preach the gospel to the lost like so many before us have? Can we take time to teach and disciple the tens of thousands who are seeking? If we love our lives, we probably will not, since there is too much to lose and it’s a waste of good talent and opportunity\. God help us\. When we are living to please the flesh and we have our lives figured out, it is hard for God to use us\. We are puffed up\. We tend to believe that God has blessed us because of all our possessions and our status in life; but isn’t this the prosperity gospel? What if that changed? Would we still consider ourselves to be blessed? Is it God or our own doing that causes us to be joyful? What if we found ourselves in John the Baptist’s shoes? Or the Apostle Paul’s? If we would be sitting in prison for doing nothing wrong, would our joy remain? It should if the Holy Spirit is living and working in our hearts\. The Bible says that we can suffer joyfully\! Years ago, a coworker of mine was a happy fellow\. He had a nice life\. There was one problem—he did not believe there was a God\. We would talk day after day\. He would constantly tell me how happy he was and that one didn’t need to be a Christian to be happy\. He would talk about his nice life, all that he possessed, his good job, his nice family\. Interestingly enough, he truly did seem happy\. I would tell him that true happiness didn’t come from the things that we possess or the position that we find ourselves in, but he would just disagree\. He also proclaimed that he lived a better life than most Christians that he knew\. He also said he didn’t get angry like most Christians and could control himself\. I tried to convince him that he was deceived\. At times I would think I was getting somewhere with him, then later it would seem I was far from reaching him\. One day he soberly admitted that I seemed to be different that most Christians he had known in the past, but that still wasn’t enough\. I left that job and lost contact with him\. Recently, I ran into another one of my former coworkers\. I quickly thought of my friend and asked how he was doing\. He looked at me strangely and then shocked me to my core as he said, “He committed suicide”\. The devil wants us to love our life—it’s that simple\. When we love our life, we focus on it, we cherish it\. The last thing we want to do is lose our life, even if it is for something eternal\. When I was in the Marines, they would constantly remind us that our lives were not number one; our country was\. There are many young men who put their country first\. Many have gone and given their all; many have died\. In World War 2, the Japanese would try to sneak up to a fox hole housing soldiers and throw in a grenade\. Many times, it didn’t end like the Japanese wanted, because someone would jump on the grenade, absorbing the explosion\. Thousands gave their lives to save their friends and defend their country\. But be sure, if their priorities were not in order \(of country first before themselves\), they would not have done so\. If someone today, in America, would risk their life for the sake of the gospel, he would be labeled as foolish, reckless, and immature\. But what do we say about so many before us—the ones that gave their lives while standing for the same things that we say we believe today? And what about the thousands today who are putting their lives on the line in other countries—are they foolish? Let’s look at a very obvious example in Acts\. *And as we tarried there many days, there came down from Judaea a certain prophet, named Agabus\. And when he was come unto us, he took Paul’s girdle, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles\. And when we heard these things, both we, and they of that place, besought him not to go up to Jerusalem\. Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus\. –Acts 21:10\-13\.* What would we think of Paul’s actions today? Paul went to Jerusalem and was quickly taken, beaten, and put in prison\. It was the beginning of the end for our dear brother\. He was moved from prison to prison and eventually ended up in Rome where he was beheaded\. What do you think the ones that tried to persuade him to not go to Jerusalem thought? Do you think they called him a fool? Did they shake their heads and say, “I told him not to go\!”? We cannot know for sure\. However, I am sure that Paul was simply putting the kingdom of Christ first; his life did not matter\. He was obeying God, and God had told him to go\. When we love our lives, it is very difficult to be an effective disciple of the Lord Jesus\. We end up forsaking God’s calling and then we are stuck trying to live the Christian life alone, and without God—no spiritual help from above, causing us to fall way short of the mark\. It’s ironic that only when we forsake all, including our lives, will we find true peace and purpose for our lives\. And when we love our lives, that is when we will lose them\. > Rise up, O saints of God\! > Have done with lesser things\. > Give heart and soul and mind and strength > To serve the King of kings\. > > > > Rise up, O saints of God\! > The kingdom tarries long\. > Bring in the day of Christlike love > And end the night of wrong\. > > > > Lift high the cross of Christ\! > Tread where His feet have trod\. > Led onward by the Son of Man, > Rise up, O saints of God\! Let us rise up, as God’s people, and begin to be done with lesser things, with our gaze on things above, not on the things of this earth\. Yes, we will stand out; we will be labeled fools and many other things\. However, we will once again catch God’s attention and the fires of revival will once again burn\!