Who is Your Hero?

I remember, when I was a child (last century, man I’m old), someone in family gave me a collection of books called “The Heroes of the Bible”, I just loved it. After reading the stories of David, Sampson, Joshua, among others, I got so impressed that I dreamed to be like them. In my childhood, my dad used to manage a huge farm, many times I went with him to bring the bulls to get vaccination, there were a lot of them and they were big. I remember whenever they fought each other (it always happened), we had to get out of their way, otherwise we’d get killed. A couple times I was chased by them, but I rode a horse that was a lot faster then they, so I always manage to run away. I was never afraid, I was extremely courageous. But, growing up, the enemy (devil) turned me into a coward person, going from a courageous teenager killing a giant (David) to a coward adult hiding in a cave (Gideon). If you read my Personal Testimonies you’ll understand it. But, along came Jesus Christ, my biggest hero, to deliver me from my enemies. I know for sure the difference between slavery and freedom, as Jesus says in John 8:36. I know a lot of people who are trying to be free from sins, addictions, etc. by their own efforts, by trying to apply biblical principals to their lives, by being morally correct, by doing Christian things, so they fight and fight… but never win! Why? Jesus explains that in John 8:34. I can assure you that Jesus is speaking the truth! I was slave of my own sin! Until we are set free from our sin, we have no other option but sinning! You can try to rebel against your sin, but after a while you’ll go back to it, because you’re slave of it! That's what Peter says in 2 Peter 2:22. It was true for me before Jesus Christ set me free and it’s true for everyone else who needs to be set free. Nowadays, the church is putting a lot of effort in behavioral change, trying to get people to be morally correct, but the real problem is: They are spiritually dead! At the end the church's efforts are worthless, even if looks like everything is going great, it’s like giving a Tylenol to a person who's dying of cancer, the headache will go away, but, sooner or latter they will die, because they never dealt with the cancer. It works the very same way concerning sin. How many times Jesus tried to make people morally correct before dealing with their condition (sin, disease, etc.)? You can see that Jesus’ priority was always the spiritual one, even when he physically healed people, there was always a message preceding or following it, like: Go and sin no more, for example. Of course He healed the sick, He taught how to behave in order to please God, but the reason He was called “friend of sinners”, was because He saw the sinner’s need for deliverance (freedom) before addressing the behavioral issue. We see (if we want to) this truth in Matthew 7:17. The only way to bear “good” fruit (I talk about it in the post The Tree, the Branch and the Fruit) it’s being “in” Jesus Christ, the Good Tree. Let’s go back to the “hero” part. We see in Hebrews 11 and throughout the Bible, a lot of heroes, all kind of people like, strong and weak ones, young and old ones, ex-thieves, ex-harlot, ex-coward, ex-murder, none of them were better nor worse than us today, the difference between them and us is Faith and Obedience! My modern heroes, among other few, are my parents. They gave their lives to serve others. I’ll try to be brief, but I want to speak about them a little bit. As I said in the beginning, my dad use the be a manager in a big farm, after quitting that job, he supposed to have a percentage over all the livestock in the farm, but he didn't get anything (the reasons are irrelevant), after that, the tried doing other things, until he met my brother’s father-in-law. My dad “saw” Jesus Christ in this man (he was a pastor, a real one), after a while my parents became born-again Christians. Then this pastor invited them to run an orphanage (like oasis) for street and poor kids. There they gave their time, money, life for those kids, my parents treated them as if they were they own kids, some of them did very good, at least one became a pastor. After many years my parents were “replaced” by another people (the details are not “nice”). From there, they went to run a public shelter, were the poor, the destitute, the forgotten (by society) came for food and shelter. Again, they gave their lives to serve people they never saw before and never saw again after that. I never saw my dad and mom discriminating or mistreating anybody, they made no exception of people and they treated everyone equally. James 2 talks about it. I never understood why they did it and honestly I thought they were wasting their lives for nothing, until I read what Jesus says in Matthew 6, where He talks about “reward”, that’s when my dad and mom became my heroes. Today in our “Christianity”, the “hero” ones are those who are “famous”, who have “diplomas”, who are “eloquent”, who sold millions of books and cds, etc. If we pay attention to Jesus Christ, He was impressed with a poor widow who offered all she had: Mark 12:42-44. Or the centurion who understood all about authority: Matthew 8:5-13. Or the greek woman who had a tremendous faith: mark 7:25-30.
Conclusion: We must review our “list of heroes”, check if we don’t have any “American idol” among them and realize that the heroes in the Bible were persecuted, rejected, despised and even killed. Before God they were heroes but before man they were the enemies. Of course God considered them heroes because they were faithful until death. Revelation 2:10.