In Acts chapter 7 we are told of the end of the life of Stephen and we are prone to call this the martyrdom of him. I think we Christians describe martyrs as those that were willing to die for Jesus. The truth of the matter is that a martyr is not a person who died for Jesus but rather it is all about how they lived.
Think about it, a martyr speaks about how a person so lived their lives that even at death this world could not hold them down. The longer I’m a Christian and the older I get the more I begin to think about how one day I will be brought into the presence of my Lord. Oh dear saints that ought to cause us to live differently.
If we were to go home with the Lord today what impact would that have on those we left behind in the world? Would our life be remembered in such away that it would be a continual testimony to the person and work of Christ? I read a quote from a book by Elisabeth Elliot, widow of missionary Jim Elliot, whose life was taken along with four others on January 8th 1956 by the Auca Indians in an Ecuadorian jungle. In one of his many journal entries he wrote this down, “When it comes time to die, make sure that all you have left to do is die!”
Off the coast of Italy a young naval officer had been involved in an accident at sea. As he floated alone on a raft he pondered his mortality and these very words of Jim Elliot stuck in his heart. He prayed to God for he realized that he had more to do for God then to die.
How about it, are we so ready to so live for Christ that we would be called a martyr?