The world is ablaze with chaos — exploding in our faces with tragedy, violence, and raw hatred. Words like perplexed, scared, sad, shocked, and angry barely scrape the surface of the anguish we feel as the flames of evil rage. Every act of brutality, every wave of malice, is an abomination that demands condemnation. But let’s cut through the noise: Christians are the world’s prime target. This isn’t my opinion — it’s the unflinching truth of Scripture.

Jesus Himself warned us: “If the world hates you,” He said in John 15:18, “know that it has hated me before it hated you.” His words in Matthew 10:22a strike even harder: “And you will be hated by all for my name’s sake.” The Apostle Paul echoes this in 2 Timothy 3:12: “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” And why? Because, as John 7:7 declares, we “testify about [the world] that its works are evil.” Those who revel in darkness despise the light we carry, for “whoever does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed” (John 3:20). Glance around you — the hatred is undeniable, glaring, and unrelenting.

Globally, the cost of faith is staggering. In Nigeria alone, 3,100 Christians were slaughtered for their faith in 2024 — a single nation’s grim tally. Open Doors International reports that 380 million believers worldwide endure “high levels” of persecution and discrimination, their lives crushed under the weight of hostility. But don’t be deceived into thinking this war is confined to distant lands. The enemy has breached America’s gates.

Look at our streets, our schools, our very souls. In recent weeks, depraved hearts have unleashed horror, gunning down children in high schools and Catholic elementary schools. Charlie Kirk — a Christian, husband, father, and fearless advocate for truth — was murdered in front of his family and thousands of college students, his only crime being his unwavering stand for free speech and faith. Our classrooms are battlegrounds, saturated with LGBT ideology, convincing our daughters that murdering their unborn children is the path to freedom. Social media has turned us inward, eroding critical thought, silencing healthy dialogue, and fueling a culture of venom and division. The result? Hatred. Conflict. Violence. Death. At the root of it all lies a singular truth: the world despises the God we serve, the truth we proclaim, the light we bear.

So, when the world is detonating before our eyes, when lives are snuffed out and danger closes in, why should Christians stay in the fight? Allow me to make my case.

In 2012, Family Research Council came under attack. FRC, which was labeled a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, became the target for a would-be killer armed with a gun and sandwiches he planned to stuff into the mouths of his victims. By God’s grace and the courage of Leo Johnson, the attacker was stopped. But why did FRC’s employees return to work the very next day? I now stand shoulder-to-shoulder with some who were there, and their answer burns with conviction: the mission is too critical to abandon. Proclaiming God’s truth in the public square, defending faith, family, and freedom — this is non-negotiable. For those rooted in the unshakeable reality of God’s objective truth, a truth that spans eternity and applies to all, retreat is not an option. It never was.

They returned because God’s truth towers above the chaos of circumstance. His love is a wildfire that fuels us through every storm. His grace and mercy are our stronghold, His character our battle cry. Scripture commands us repeatedly to fear not — not because danger isn’t real, but because worldly fear is a chain that blinds us, binds us, and drags us from our hope in Christ. It’s a dark force that suffocates our mission and dishonors our God. But there is a fear we are called to embrace: the fear of the Lord.

This fear is no ordinary trembling. It’s a holy awe that sets our souls ablaze, transforming sparks of faith into roaring flames of courage. “There is no fear in love,” declares 1 John 4:18, “but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” And who is love? God Himself. His perfect love obliterates every lesser fear, for in Christ, we are no longer slaves to wrath but heirs of His righteousness, clothed in His blood-bought freedom.

When we fear the Lord rightly, we see the world through a divine lens. Trials become battlegrounds for truth. Suffering becomes a forge for steadfastness. Paul’s words in Colossians 1:24 ring out: “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.” James calls us to “count it all joy” in trials, for they produce a faith that leaves us “perfect, complete, lacking in nothing.”

Beloved, in Christ, we lack nothing. Philippians 1:21 proclaims it best: “To live is Christ, and to die is gain.” He is our all — our anchor in the tempest, our light in the darkness, our joy in despair, our reason to rise each morning. Oh, how I love the hymn that sings, “Give me Jesus. Give me Jesus. Give me Jesus. You can have all this world. But give me Jesus.” What can this world steal from us? Nothing. Our God is sovereign, mighty to save. Even if we perish, we will never bow to the forces of evil. And if we die in the fire, so be it — our death, like our life, is beautiful in Christ.

So, why do we stay in the fight? Because we’re commanded to. It’s our sacred calling to proclaim God’s truth to a starving world. But let’s go deeper: Why defend the unborn, uphold biblical marriage and gender, champion law and order, and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Because to abandon this fight is to forfeit life itself. Revelation 3:1 cuts like a blade: “I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.” Let the church never be a corpse with a pulse. We are alive — vibrantly, eternally alive — walking in divine purpose.

Charlie Kirk fought the good fight and paid the ultimate price. Yet, in Christ, he is more alive now than we can fathom. Christians in China, Nigeria, and beyond bear their crosses daily, knowing their sacrifice is worth everything. To the American church, the time for complacency is over. Persecution is no longer a distant shadow — it’s here, creeping into our midst. Now is not the time to shrink back but to stand bolder, fiercer, unyielding.

Fight. Fight with every fiber of your being — in your homes, your communities, wherever God leads you. I pray with a fervent heart that the murderers silencing truth with bullets face swift justice. I pray God’s mighty hand restrains them. I pray no more of our brothers and sisters fall as Charlie Kirk did. But if that is our fate, we are ready.

In the daily grind, embrace the cost — lose followers, endure slander, rejoice in trials, for they carry eternal weight. This is a spiritual war, and we are summoned to battle: speaking truth in love, exposing darkness with light, and fearing God above all else. Stay in the fight — the good fight — because it’s worth our everything. Serving God is worth our everything. Even just one soul seeing redemption is worth everything we’ve got. The world is blowing up. Stay in the fight. We’ve already won. Stay in the fight.