Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the renowned Baptist preacher (1834-1892), once wrote: “We shouldn’t be as moveable as waves, but as fixed as stars. We shouldn’t be like the thistledown, blown away by every wind, but like a distant granite peak, which defies the storms of the ages.” * Such is the fixed character of Christ our Savior, along with everyone who follows in His footsteps in their own “storm of the ages.”

 
We see this played out in the life of Christ in the world. The prophet Isaiah wrote of the flint-like character of our Savior when he prophesied: “I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard, I did not hide my face from shame and spitting. For the Lord God will help Me, therefore I will not be disgraced; therefore I have set My face like a flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed,” (Isaiah 50:6-7 NKJV).

That flint-like character of Christ is a blue-print for all who surrender their life to the power of His resurrection. We too, through the Spirit of Jesus can ‘set our face like a flint’ — whatever that might look like in our lives, for we too have a ‘cross’ to carry.

Clearly, the world is not getting safer for believers in Jesus, but increasingly hostile. Even those who enjoy living ‘safe and free’ in places are witnessing their freedoms slowly erode away. Believers here and around the world are increasingly being ridiculed, harassed, mischaracterized, and persecuted for their allegiance to Jesus. Are we prepared to take up our cross and follow Him in flint-like faith? It comes with the cost of self-denial, as Jesus said “…If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me,” (Luke 9:23 CSB).

* The Spurgeon Study Bible, p. 1168.