Love Notes from Abby: Counting the Cost

Transcript:

We are carrying on with our truth series, and today we're going to focus on counting the cost of living the truth.

Back in 2014 I heard a story that literally rocked my world.

It was about a Sudanese woman named Meriam Ibrahim. She was eight months pregnant, and she had been arrested. She was charged with adultery and apostasy, pretty serious charges there.

The reason that she was charged with adultery was because she married a Christian man. A member of her family, turned her in. They were of the Muslim faith and Meriam would then be punished because she had married a Christian man.

Then she was charged with apostasy. And so apostasy was where she was accused of denying the Muslim faith.

To give you an idea, the punishment for those crimes or those charges was a hundred lashes for the adultery and hanging to death for the apostasy.

And so she was in jail with her child, 8 months pregnant, awaiting to see what was going to actually happen.

And here's the thing, all she had to do was say, alright, I'm a Muslim, renounce her Christian faith and all of this goes away. No lashes and no death.

Okay, so we're talking about excruciating pain followed by certain death.

All she has to do is say, okay, I'll be Muslim. I was rocked to the core.

When I heard this story, my stomach was just in knots and I thought, oh my goodness, these are dire circumstances, dire circumstances, not only from her own perspective, but then to think that I'm going to leave my child, my one year old son and then by unborn child will be killed as well.

When we talk about counting the cost of our faith, you want to talk about being sold out for Jesus, sold out for your faith. Meriam Ibrahim counted the cost of Christianity and she was able to stand.

I can tell you before the wreck, I don't know that I could have withstood that kind of pressure. I would have somehow justified it in my mind that Oh surely God would understand, and I would have been wrong.

But when we're asked and there is a cost to it, can we stand?

And so as we go about our weekend and as we go about our lives, that's the question.

Can we stand?

I will say that post wreck, I am no longer a casual Christian and I know that I want to be in the Word and I want to know Him so intimately that I can stand.

I want that same for you.

I want all of us that claim to be Christians that we can withstand the cost.

Jesus paid a high price for us and there is a cost to being a Christian, but it's a cost that I don't think many of us have ever had to pay.

And so when we get busy with our schedules and when we're put in uncomfortable conversations or small things happen in comparison to the atrocities and the suffering of Christians all over the world, let us keep a right perspective of what's important and what's not.

And may we all be prepared to stand. And that is your love note for today.

God loves you. I love you. Now go take on your Friday.

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