Does that title surprise you? Does it shock you that being a Christian isn't immediately beneficial in a worldly way? So were the disciples. They struggled mightily to wrap their head around Jesus' teaching that his kingdom was not coming in the way they thought.
The disciples thought Jesus was going to change things immediately in a regular obvious way. They expected success in the normal ways, in physical rest, political dominance, powerful authority, and national pride. They hoped for glory and honor from their fellow men and women. They wanted to pay back the Romans for their disrespect and arrogance. They wanted a better life here and now.
But Jesus didn't come to give us a "better" life in the sense that this earthly life would become heaven. Instead, Jesus came from heaven to connect us to heaven. He came to give us a higher life, a higher purpose, a deeper peace.
Sure, Jesus could have given us three wishes and had us wish for temporary things that would have made our life better for a time. He could, like Solomon, give wisdom and wealth beyond imagining. But to what end? "Everything is like grass... it withers and dies..." These are momentary dreams and fleeting breaths.
Instead, Jesus came to give us life and life to the FULL. He came to bring the kingdom of God to our hearts through faith in Him. By believing in Jesus as our Savior FROM this world and all its decay, we become part of a much greater future. The vision of God goes so much further than our short life and our limited human history. God is thinking eternal. He wants us to be free forever, not just until death claims us once here, and forever afterwards.
Being a Christian doesn't mean less hardship because often hardship is the only way we wake up for a moment from our obsession with the temporary so that we long for an eternal solution. Jesus is that eternal solution. As the world becomes less desirable for us, Jesus becomes more.
Being a Christian means more Jesus in every area of who we are. First, the Spirit opens our mind to consider higher things, a greater plan. Then, through our consumption of God's Word through regular study, worship and meditation, we live more and more for the unseen life to come with Jesus in heaven forever. Today's suffering becomes a way to hone our faith in the forever. God uses suffering to produce perseverance, and perseverance over evil produces hope. And hope does not disappoint us, informed and based hope in Jesus Christ, the cornerstone of Christianity.
We don't stop there. We press on toward the goal to win the crown. We do hard things even if it means hardship and struggle, because we want to keep practicing our faith. We want to apply our faith practically on a daily basis. We want to train our bodies, our minds, and our emotions to submit to the Spirit and the faith he gives from its author, Jesus Christ.
Being a Christian means more Jesus. Embrace the hardship. Lean into Christ.
Read Romans 5:1-5, 2 Corinthians 4, 1 Peter 4:12-19, and Matthew 16:24-27.
Titus Buelow
Founder of Underground
Pastor at St. Peter's Lutheran Church in Helenville, WI