As a teenager, early in my walk with Christ, I remember being fascinated with end-times prophecies.
Every so often, I’d find myself in a discussion with friends about what those times would be like.
More notably, whether we’d be willing to lose our lives for Christ if we found ourselves facing the threat of death because of our faith.
As you can imagine, at that age we were overconfident. “Of course I’ll give up my life for God”, most of us would say.
But recently I watched a YouTube video that made me see my willingness to die for Christ from a different perspective.
The video is entitled: The Psychology of Character: How You Become the Person You Repeatedly Practice Being.
As the title suggests, the video argues that we aren’t born with a certain character, but rather our character is built by the choices we repeatedly make.
For instance, according to the video, people aren’t naturally generous but rather they become a generous person by repeated acts of generosity.
Looking at being willing to die for Christ from that perspective, I realized that becoming the type of person who would do it takes practice.
Each time we put God first, even in small ways, we reinforce that sacrificial character.
I suppose this is one of the reasons Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24 NIV).
So, practice putting God first.
Each time you do, you become more of the person who would die for him.
God bless,
Moses
