Must I Live?

“To live is Christ,” Paul said and even that makes dying a paying proposition.   “To live is Christ and to die is gain.”  That’s the only way I know you can do that.  But you do that when you can say “I live for Christ”.  Anything that compromises that all out devotion is to be refused and turned down flatly at any cost.  Now that little pinch of incense may have seemed very insignificant.  You’ve seen the great paintings of some being led away to be killed because they wouldn’t put into the altar that little insignificant bit of an offering.  It may have looked innocent, but to them it was anathema.  Because he only knew one God and he would not by life or lip pay even a gesture to another.  If belonging to your pagan guild compromises your views on Jesus Christ; lose your job first.  You don’t have to eat: you only have to be faithful.  You say that is radical.  I know its radical – turned the world upside down one time.  No use quibbling about it.  You can’t untie these knots these days, you have to cut them.  And that’s radical treatment sometimes, but it’s better than cutting off the dog’s tail off by inches which is slow business and hard on the dog besides.  ~Vance Havner, “Must I Live?”