“So then, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.” Hebrews 13: 13-14
We live in a culture obsessed with comfort. With curated peace. With sanitized risk. But the gospel does not call us to remain nestled in the camp of convenience, it calls us to go out. To leave the safety of status quo and step into the unknown where Christ Himself stood: outside the camp, where suffering and truth collide.
Yesterday, a great man lost his life for professing the gospel of Jesus Christ. For speaking truth in love. For being a voice to the next generation who is inundated with messages of division, confusion and chaos.
Galatians 5 is the often referred to as the fruits of the Spirit chapter. It carries a different message as well: fruits of the flesh. Those obvious “fruits” such as lust, witchcraft, idolatry also include the more subtle and subversive perversions including hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissensions and factions. These very values, pervasive in today’s culture are the very ones that men like Charlie Kirk stood against, peacefully, and in a spirit that lifted up the gospel of Jesus Christ — exemplified through not only grace, but also truth. He stepped outside of the normal comfort zones of life and embraced a society desperately seeking hope.
This is the pattern of the kingdom. Jesus didn’t reign from within the walls of earthly power — He bore shame and misunderstanding outside them. He didn’t stay in the temple; He walked among the broken. And if we’re to follow Him, truly follow Him, we must be willing to leave behind the illusion of safety and bear His reproach. We must take on the weight of rejection, misunderstanding, resistance, and suffering that comes with bold faith.
Few are willing.
This kind of obedience isn’t comfortable. It costs something. It may cost reputation, opportunity, relationships, or ease. But if we count the cost clearly, we’ll remember this: we are not citizens of this world. This is not our lasting city. Our eternal citizenship is with God, in the city yet to come — the restored Eden, the unshakeable kingdom.
Until then, we stand in the gap. We carry light into dark spaces. We speak when silence is safer. We model what it means to live Spirit-filled, not self-satisfied.
As John 10 reminds us, Jesus is the door. He leads to abundant life — not merely survival or comfort, but a life marked by purpose, power, and pastoral guidance under the Good Shepherd. The thief (culture, the enemy, even comfort) comes to steal and destroy. But Jesus comes that we might live fully and bring others with us.
Let today be a call to courage: to leave the camp, to bear the cost, and to move toward the city that will never fall.
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