Another Unlikely Follower...

"Just think about the situation Christ's disciples were in after He left them. Here was a group of peasants, powerless, up against the most powerful empire in the world. Possible prison time was the very least of their worries. They knew that torture and execution could be in their future if they refused to stop preaching the name of Jesus Christ. But they couldn't stop. To a man, they kept talking about Christ's life, death, and resurrection to anyone who would listen. None of them would deny or retract their story. Eventually, just as the authorities had threatened, most of them were executed for it. But still, all of them maintained to the very end that Jesus had risen from the dead—that they had seen Him, touched Him, talked with Him. What would inspire men to suffer and die for a belief? Only one thing—the absolute certainty that their belief was true... Which leads me inescapably to one conclusion: Jesus' resurrection was not a lie. These apostles would have turned state's evidence in a heartbeat, copped a plea, unless they had seen the risen Christ in the flesh... Their
courage, their steadfastness, proves that their story is the truth. And that makes it a truth worth living—and dying—for."

—Chuck Colson