As believers, we want to live lives that point to Christ. So often, though I think we end up living lives that point to us. The apostle Paul has some great instruction about this in 2 Corinthian 6:4-10:
“As servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; 5 in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; 6 in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; 7 in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; 8 through glory and dishonor, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors; 9 known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; 10 sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.”
We don’t point to Christ by making much of ourselves. In fact, when we make much of ourselves we are guilty of idolatry and leading others to worship an idol – but in this case the idol is US! It is time for Christians to stand up and declare that we trust in Christ – no matter what may come. We need to know that how we respond when the difficulties comes speaks just as much about the truthfulness of Christ as anything we say we believe. Throughout Scripture it is the ability of God’s followers to endure in faith even through – maybe even especially through – persecution and hardship that shows a watching world the truth of what we say we believe.
When we start preaching, teaching, or living a life in Christ that says Christ is good only when good things are happening then we have lost the truth of Scripture even though we have nothing, we possess everything.