“If you remain faithful when facing death, I will give you the crown of life.” Jesus, Rev 2:10
“Help me walk the walk.” Steve
I’ve missed the application of Rev 2:10 – it’s not just faith in persecution – something bigger is going on here.
In context the church in Smyrna is facing persecution, and in the future people will be thrown into prison. Some may die. So God is telling them to get ready now, to be faithful even to death, if that is what is coming for them.
But I believe it also applies to Macen, and Steve, and my parents – people who were faithful to God when facing death. Not persecution death, but cancer or Alzheimer’s or yet-another-stroke death. When Steve was diagnosed I asked him how I could pray for him. He asked me to “pray that I would walk the walk God has for me.” He was concerned he would get mad at God, and be a poor example for his boys still living at home. He didn’t want to die a poser, a man who could follow God in the good times, but dumped God in the hard times.
More recently I watched 17-year-old Macen walk the walk. I watched my parents do the same. It’s not just faith in the face of persecution that is going on here. It’s faith in God when God seems unfaithful. It’s knowing God is good all the time when the circumstances, which God could change, are not good. It’s walking the walk when the walk sucks, in faith that God’s walk is better than the walk we would rather be on.
Lord, help me to walk the walk You have for me.
danielcooleyblog 
I love this post.
Journaling through Psalms, I recently came across this commentary from the Treasury of David for Psalm 88:5……”Beware how you ever look upon yourself as cut off from life and from enjoyment; you are not cut off, only taken apart, laid aside, it may be but for a season, or it may be for life; but still you are part of the body of which Christ is the Head. Some must suffer and some must serve, but each one is necessary to the other, “the whole body is fitly framed together by that which every joint supplieth”, “the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you:” Ephesians 4:16 1 Corinthians 12:21. Your feet may be set fast; they may have run with great activity, and you sorrow now, because they can run no more. But do not sorrow thus, do not envy those who are running; you have a work to do; it may be the work of the head, or of the eye, it surely is whatever work God gives to you. It may be the work of lying still, of not stirring hand or foot, of scarcely speaking, scarcely showing life. Fear not: if He your heavenly Master has given it to you to do, it is His work, and He will bless it. Do not repine. Do not say, This is work, and, this is not; how do you know? What work, think you, was Daniel doing in the lion’s den? Or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace? Their work was glorious, “laudable, and honourable”, they were glorifying God in suffering. –From “Sickness, its Trials and Blessings.” (Anon.) 1868.”
One of Oswald Chambers’ favorite beliefs was that God engineers our circumstances for His will and purposes. It is for us to “walk the walk.” Thankful for a faith family that, through prayer, helps make that possible. Thanks for the post, Dan.
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Love that Chambers’ quote. May have to steal that one.
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Well, that wasn’t a direct quote. 😉 Here’s one though, taken from the book, OC: Abandoned to God……”‘I don’t care what God does. It’s what God is that I care about.’ …he knew that God’s actions could be very confusing, while the Lord Himself never was.” Just that knowledge alone makes it easier to walk the paths He “engineers” for us.
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Not a direct quote? Maybe you should write your own book….
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Oh, the first paragraph was a direct quote from an anonymous author. The last paragraph in my first post was a thought, not a quote, of Oswald Chambers. But, I would love to write a book. I have the idea and the title already. :-).
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Go for it. I love editing….
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