If you would walk a godly life in Christ Jesus, there will be a cost. For many of us in the West, there has been little cost in taking the path of discipleship. But if we are to be disciples of the Lord Jesus, there will be times of challenge to our faith. The Lord, the Vinedresser of His vineyard will make it so:
1“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful (John 15:1-2).
Your faith will be challenged. Ask God for sensitivity so that you will know and realize the challenge when it comes. The challenge will be for you to compromise and take a side path rather than the highway of holiness to God. For instance, when Sadhu Sundar Singh of India converted to Christ from his family religion of Sikhism, he was immediately challenged to compromise and leave the path of faith in Christ. When he told his father of having seen Jesus Christ, his father replied, “don’t bring disgrace on your family by joining those dirty outcastes,” referring to the fact that the gospel had taken hold among the lower caste system in India. The local Christians were mostly of the sweeper castes that did all the dirty work in the village. How could Sundar bring such shame to his family by becoming one of them? He could no longer eat meals with his family and was told to eat outside.
After all kinds of pressure for him to abandon his faith, his uncle took him down into a deep cellar and opened an iron box filled with money and precious jewels. His uncle promised that it would all be Sundar’s if only he would abandon his faith in Christ and return to the religion of his family. Sundar refused to renounce Christ. He knew he had to do something that would release him from these daily trials and attacks to turn him from the faith. One day, he went out and cut off all his hair. To a Sikh in the Punjab region of India, long hair was the chief of the Five Signs, his glory, the Kev which he wore tied in a knob at the top of his head.
The shock and horror of his family at this act knew no bounds. His Father ordered him out of the family. He had to sleep the night under a tree. Sundar knew he had to leave, but before he left, his sister-in-law, unsmiling, put some food out under the verandah, the place where outcastes were allowed to eat and indicated that it was for him. After eating the food, he left to see a local Presbyterian pastor. When he got there, he began to have violent spasms of pain. His family had poisoned him! Later he found out that his only Christian friend, one that had also converted from Sikhism, had also been poisoned and had died. The doctor came quickly but said that the amount of poison he had could not be stopped. He left him to die. The doctor could do nothing. Sundar turned to the Scriptures and read aloud the passage:
17And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well” (Mark 16:17-18).
The next morning, to the doctor’s amazement, Sundar was completely well. The Lord had healed him. The doctor, for the first time, read the New Testament and a complete turnaround came to him from that point. For Sundar, this time was full of joy at the working of the Lord in his life. The peace of Christ was with him, and he was free of religion full of ritual to an authentic relationship with God. How about you, dear reader, is your relationship with God something real? Get the real thing—faith in Christ. Keith Thomas
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