Because it’s sometimes too easy to be a Christian in our culture, it can be easy to forget how hard it is to be a Christian.  But even though we don’t have the same day-to-day problems the early Christians did, if we are to be true Christians, our lot is not an easy one.  It’s so much easier to give in to sin and temptation.  Christianity is the hard way.  It’s harder to be moral, to be right.  And of course, no one told us it would be easy.  In fact, just the opposite.  We were told that this way was hard, and that the rewards would not be earthly.  It might be more profitable to be immoral, but the right way, the hard way, will yield a spiritual reward.

Jesus says that our place is not of the world, and the rewards of our struggle will not be of the world.  It might seem frustrating when we see people cheating and prospering.  It doesn’t seem right when immoral people rise to the top by stepping over others, by injuring the innocent.  Shouldn’t the just be rewarded?  Shouldn’t the good prosper?  If our place was in the world, our rewards would be worldly.  If our place was in the world, the good would get the profits.  But our place, like our God’s, is not of the world.  Our reward will not be on earth but in heaven.  If we were meant for the world, the good would be rewarded in the world.  The world would love the good and the just.  But it doesn’t.

Our leader, our savior, was brutally tortured and killed.  How can his followers expect more?  Because Christians are unlikely to be persecuted here, it’s easy to forget our history and our beginnings.  But we shouldn’t forget where we came from, and even though it’s hard, we need to remember where we’re going and how to get there.