"Made for Danger"

What stands out to me about a circus is that most every act has a sense of danger. In a circus people don't just ride on horses, they stand on horses, a man is shot from a cannon across the stadium, the lion tamer puts his head in the mouth of a lion, Walking the tight rope without a safety net, getting elephants that could crush you to learn to step over you, the clowns choreographed falls, hits and spills...it all requires an element of danger. Isn't it that element of danger that keeps crowds coming back every generation?

As we approach, Father's day, I wonder if the reason that the church universal has more women than men is because we have robbed our faith of danger. We have worked so hard to make God out to be safe and secure that we forget that the Bible offers one true story after another in which men and women were required to follow God not away from, but through great, death-defying and some time, death-bringing danger.

Joseph was asked to trust God when his brothers sold him as a slave and told their father he was dead.

Moses was commanded by God to return to Egypt where he was wanted for murder and to tell the most powerful nation of the ancient world to let God's people go.

Joshua was asked to set aside what he had learned at the military academy and to march around the seemingly insurmountable walls of Jericho 7 times.

Esther was required to set aside self-preservation in an attempt to preserve her people by barging into the King's court without being invited as the Persian law required.

Nehemiah, a mere cup-bearer, was burdened to risk his job and life by requesting a foreign King to allow him to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

Peter, James and John were invited to leave behind their livelihood and trust that their needs would be provided for as they followed Jesus.

Jesus modeled the danger of following God as he was nailed to the cross.

The Apostle Paul was beaten, stoned, imprisoned, ship wrecked, bitten by a poisonous snake, falsely accused, imprisoned and martyred for his faith.

To follow Jesus, is not safe. To follow Jesus is to accept that I will be called to move outside my comfort zone and onto the battlefield. We are not guaranteed safety or survival. However, we are promised that in all things and at all times, if Christ is our Lord and Savior, then nothing shall separate us from him.

To all who accept that we are made for danger, Romans 8:31-39 gives us this promise, "What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”[j]

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[k] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."