The Gospel is not for the faint of heart.

The gospel is not for the faint of heart. When you give your life to Jesus, it’s guaranteed that you will suffer for the gospel. Philippians 1:29 (NKJV) says, “For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake…” You’re going to go through trials, through fires, and you’re going to be in the fire continuously, but you don’t have to come out smelling like smoke. You can burn for Jesus and become a sweet-smelling aroma!

What does it mean to be wholly set apart? What does it mean for you to be handpicked by God? He says “yes” to everyone, but not everybody sees the full yes. What many do is “incorporate” God in their lives for what they can get from Him, maybe what He can do for them, but let me tell you this Christian life is not about incorporating Jesus. This Christian life is about denying yourself, picking up your cross, and following Him. But not just following Him to say, “I follow Jesus.” It’s following Him so that you can be like Him.

The American Church tends to not want to be like Jesus. The Church wants to just be saved, go to service on a Sunday, try to make it through the week, and then another Sunday comes and maybe that’ll get them through to the next Sunday. That is NOT what Jesus paid a price for. He paid a price for you to be fully possessed by Him, fully in love, and fully understanding the price that He paid for you. You have to be willing to see the truth of what He did—to see the truth of what He did with your past. If you don’t see how He obliterated everything you wish you’d never done, you can’t get on with God in the present because condemnation, guilt, and shame still whisper into your soul and hold you back. To live in condemnation, guilt, and shame is absolutely illegal for the Christian. My number one priority at Lifestyle Christianity is to annihilate guilt, shame, and condemnation so that you wake up every day free to live your life out loud for Jesus. You can’t look back at yesterday and wonder if He loves you. You must look at the cross and know that He loves you! We need you to be a preacher of the gospel! How can you preach a gospel that you don’t believe? How can you tell the truth about Jesus if you don’t believe He has set you free?

You can’t share freedom with somebody if you don’t have it. To be filled with the fullness of God is to know the love of God that’s in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:19). All of us have the ability to know that every second of every day, minus none. And if a doubt comes up, faith encapsulates it, crushes it, and knocks it out (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). We are supposed to be a people who walk and suffer for doing good, yet we hate suffering. When you suffer for doing good, it’s commendable to God (1 Peter 3:14). The great cloud of witnesses—all these people that went before you—are looking down at the Church saying, “You guys have got this!” You’ve got a great cloud of witnesses cheering you on, “Go Church, go!” You’ve got all these martyrs who’ve been horribly executed for the gospel and are part of this great cloud of witnesses, standing in heaven saying, “Come on guys, what are you doing? Why would you be afraid to share your faith? Look at the price that everyone’s paid for you to step into destiny and walk with the integrity of God, to be a chosen generation, to be a royal priesthood, to be holy and set apart to do good works, to burn with such a fire that nobody can put it out!”

Do you know what it’s like to put out an oil fire? Do you know what happens when people spray water on an oil fire? It spreads. If you realize Who you carry and what you actually have, you’ll never be the same! Christ in us is the hope of glory, but that hope isn’t made manifest until Christ comes out of us. Christ coming out of you is that hope revealed. You’re an ambassador of reconciliation; an ambassador of hope! How can I let the world know that God is not imputing their trespasses against them if I don’t believe He’s not imputing them against me? How can I live this Christian life in its fullness without believing that I haven’t just been forgiven? That my sins have actually been forgotten? It’s the blood of Jesus. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus! The soul gets transformed. The soul is to be free of debris so that the only mission in life is to represent Him well. We can’t go with the culture that is built on “likes” and “follows.” Culture is built on “likes” because it doesn’t know love. If I know that I’m loved, I don’t need anybody to like me. You don’t even have to agree with me. One person in Christ is the majority. I can have a million devils walk into the room and I’m the majority because He lives in me. Where is fear when faith comes? If the perfect love of God casts out all fear and you’re afraid, there’s a missing ingredient. First John 4:8 says that perfect love casts out all fear, so if there’s fear, the common ingredient missing is His perfect love. It’s the simplicity of the gospel, and it’s out of intimacy that Jesus destroyed the works of the devil!

Get rid of anything that hinders intimacy with Father in your life today! Stay close to Him and do everything out of the abundance of your relationship with Him! This is how we suffer well for the sake of the gospel!

Todd White