Let it be said again and again, followers of Jesus lay down their lives to save others, not to slaughter others.

We live in a day where suicide bombings are so frequent, they scarcely cause a ripple in the news. Radical Islam or Jihadist Islam teaches that if you kill infidels in your act of dying, God will take you to paradise and reward you.

Jesus led us in exactly the opposite direction. He died for his enemies. He prayed for his enemies. He said, “He who would lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s — the good news — would save it” (Mark 8:35).

And then Stephen, one of the greatest followers in those early days did the same thing. As he died, he asked God not to hold the charge against his enemies. (Acts 7:60).

“We want our lives to count for bringing others with us into the presence of God.”

Then you have Paul, who says near the end of his life where he’s praying for those elders in Acts 20,

But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. (Acts 20:24)

He doesn’t count his life of any value, if he could just die to make one thing plain.

We are offering to the world — to our enemies — a gospel of grace, a gospel of salvation and forgiveness. We don’t want to be the means of anyone’s destruction. We want our lives, whether we live or whether we die, to count for bringing others with us into the presence of God.