Name: Oli N.B.
Age: 23
Location: Southeast Asia

Truth. Simple, pure, unadulterated, unvarnished, unembellished Truth. If you knew the Truth, you would also know Freedom. (John 8:32)

But many are not willing to pay Freedom’s price. Which is why it took so long to abolish slavery. Not because the slaves did not yearn for freedom, but because their owners were too damn lazy to get off their backsides and do their own work. Instead they were content to make a living from riding on the backs of those they subjected and forced into a life of misery, suffering, poverty and shame.

It was too steep a cost for those richies to be out in the sun, working for themselves, earning an honest and decent living. And so, they were content to profit from the suffering and labor of others. They were content to live a life of cheating and corruption, raking in for themselves the rightfully and hard-earned wages of the honest, poor underdog. Yes, freedom would require too high a personal price, and so they were willing to enslave others, to cheat, lie, steal, kill, pillage and plunder for personal gain and a thicker pocketbook.

I wonder if some of you, our caustic detractors and apostates, would not find yourselves too out of step with the “ethics” of slave traders and landowners of centuries gone by.

But there are some who are willing to die for freedom–the freedom to worship God; the freedom to live simple lives of unselfishness; the freedom to give to others; the freedom to live; the freedom to raise our children according to the Bible; the freedom to pass on the message of Salvation for mankind; the freedom to hear, believe and live God’s Word that speaks to our hearts, what we know is real; the freedom to live by faith.

Without truth, there can be no freedom. And so, we are also willing to die for Truth, just as Jesus Christ, many of the Apostles, saints and martyrs throughout history were also willing to die for Truth, for faith, for love. We consider ourselves in good company. Jesus Christ purchased our Freedom with His blood. The martyrs’ Freedom cost them dear. But their faith–the Truth-was worth more than life, and they were willing to lose their life for God’s sake, that they might obtain a more excellent resurrection.

Jesus had a word for people who strained at gnats–picking on a small fellowship of Christian missionaries who may have some viewpoints that are different than yours, but who are nonetheless making a difference in this world through reaching out to the poor and needy, and giving to many the gift of Eternal Life–and swallowed camels–condoning and virtually canonizing a murderer. Blind guides. Hypocrites. Or in plainer English, liars. (See Matthew 23.)
You cannot kill the Truth.

Oli is a second generation member of the Family International