I worried in a recent blog about the effect of identifying someone as a Christian in the climate in the country today. I cannot in good conscience place someone in a position to be persecuted for their faith by my blog spot. At the same time as a general principle we should as Christians be glad when we are persecuted. Why? Because it means that we are confessing. This from Helmut Thielicke, “Sermons of the Sermon on the Mount”.
So, “confessing” does not mean that we are like oaks, weathering the storm by our own power. To be a confessor means to bear witness to the power of the living God and to start from the fact (note this, from the fact) that this power of God is a force that sovereignly embraces the good and the evil, the faithful and the mockers, and that nothing is beyond its dominion. But when I do this, when I venture to do this, a miracle happens; for then what happens is nothing less than my proceeding to make room for heaven, to break a path for the reign of God in our lives. And just by doing this, my confession gains the power to detonate a greater power; what happens is simply that now I let God act and rule, while I am content to be only his instrument. And when that happens, or better, when I let this happen, then I am acting in good earnest with the faith that “our commonwealth is in heaven” and that here we are acting in the name of one whose name is above every name.
