What Are You Dying For?

In 1912, Teddy Roosevelt was running for a third term as President of the U.S.A., as head of the newly-formed Progressive Party. He eventually lost the race, but gained a lot of sympathy and respect as a result of being shot in the chest on his way to deliver a speech in Milwaukee.

Doctors and other attendants urged him to forego the speech and get to a hospital, but he insisted on talking to the gathered crowd: "It takes more than that to kill a bull moose!"

Henry F. Pringle quotes Roosevelt in his book, Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography:

"I am not hurt badly. I have a message to deliver and will deliver it as long as there is life in my body. It matters little about me, but it matters about the cause we fight for. If one soldier who carries the flag is stricken, another will take it from his hands and carry it on. Tell the people not to worry about me, for if I go down another will take my place. For always the army is true. Always the cause is there."

Is there a message or a cause for which you are willing to take a bullet to the chest and yet carry on? Is there anything that important to you? Faith? Family? Freedom?

Truth is...I believe if it came down to facing a gunman who said he would kill me if I didn't renounce Christ, I would choose death. The thing is, in many ways it would be easier to die for Jesus than it is to live for him.