Hebrews question...

Today's devo/question comes from the book of Hebrews. I'm trying to finish up a New Testament class right now and tonight I was studying a little bit from the book of Hebrews. "Hebrews" was written to Greek-influenced Jewish Christians who were believed to have been living in Rome. These Jewish Christians were experiencing extreme persecution for their faith and were debating whether or not it would be a good idea to continue on with their Christianity when it could potentially lead to their decease. 

In the midst of their struggle, the author of Hebrews wrote to them:

³⁵ do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.³⁶ You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised... ³⁹ But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.  

Hebrews 10:35-36 & 39

After struggling through my review questions I finally got to the reflection questions. The first question seemed easy enough to answer but the second stirred something inside of me. It read "Would you continue to observe your faith if you knew that you would be executed for it tomorrow?" What a difficult question. I couldn't even begin to comprehend what being in that situation would feel like. Still, large amounts of believers are living under these situations even to this day. Some live in countries where they could be cast out, persecuted, or even killed for their faith. 

Therefore, because our global brothers and sister in Christ are having to ask themselves this question, possibly on a daily basis, I encourage you to ponder this very same question in your own life... Would you continue to observe your faith if you knew that you would be executed for it tomorrow?

If you need some encouragement to start I've put my answer below... 

I think it would be much harder to continue to hold my faith under those circumstances. I also think that while holding my faith I would continue to have an internal struggle with myself where half of me would be focused on self-preservation while the other half would be focused on eternal-self-preservation. I wish it could come down to my love of God (instead of love of my life) but the life/death situations I have found myself in have caused me to realize that, oddly, our flesh sometimes runs deeper than our hearts. In those same life/death situations, however, I’ve come to the realization that if you’re not continuing with God then there’s really no point to continue at all.