The Cost of Following ChristVoorbeeld

## Sharing The Love Of Christ Discovering that God loves me and that Jesus died for me has changed me. I’ve come to know my truest self as I’ve walked the road of Christian faith. The other great privilege has been having faith-filled friends as inspirational fellow travellers. I’ve also known the cost of being prejudged by others who have an unkind image of Christians (often justified) and who have immediately decided that I was ‘one of them’ before getting to know me. It was challenging when I was younger, and I was the only Christian in my group of friends. In many ways, it was a small cost to pay, and I realise now that staying connected while not choosing to be involved in the choices my friends made did whisper of a different way to live. Years later, some of those friends contacted me to share how they found the Christian faith. One had ended up in an abusive relationship. She told me she had a dream and remembered things I had said about God’s love. It gave her the courage to leave the relationship with her young child and walk into a church to ask for help. She found peace through her faith in God and a new life. I hope you will discover, as I have, that in the long view of life, the cost of sharing the love of Christ with others is worth it. As 2 Corinthians 2:15–17 says, we are to be the fragrance of Christ to all people. #### Written by KATH HENRY