karma  As we plunge into the New Year, we are all hoping that things will get better. The question is, What can we do to make it better? Some people think they can improve their lives by changing their karma. Is that the answer?

   The word “karma” is often used differently today from what it meant originally. Karma is a Hindu teaching that our present actions affect the nature and quality of our future. That idea is tied closely to their belief in reincarnation—that we come back to earth as something different after we die. Back in the 7th Century BC the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (a key text used by various schools of Hinduism) put it this way: “Now as a man is like this or like that, according as he acts and according as he behaves, so will he be; a man of good acts will become good, a man of bad acts, bad; he becomes pure by pure deeds, bad by bad deeds…”

   Today, though, the meaning of karma can probably be summed up by the common phrase, “What goes around comes around.” In other words, if you do bad things, bad things will happen to you—and if you do good things, good things will happen to you.

   I am concerned that in some ways the ancient teaching of karma has crept into the Christian church today. For example, many popular Christian preachers are saying that God will reward us with financial and physical blessings if we will just follow God’s teachings. Those same preachers seem to be saying that if we just have enough faith, God will do what we want Him to do. In other words, follow God’s commands and things will get better. Sounds like Christian Karma to me. Doesn’t that sound like they’re teaching that if you are a good Christian, good things will happen to you?

   History shows us that many good Christians have suffered a lot of very bad things. It started with the early followers of Christ. Except for John, secular history records the torture and execution of all of the Apostles. In the three hundred years that followed Christ’s resurrection, Christians suffered intense suffering from the Roman government. Many were crucified or were thrown to wild beasts in the Roman Coliseum.

   How are Christians being treated today? We would like to think that things have gotten better since those ancient times. The truth is that today it may be even worse.

   ISIS (the Islamic State) has publicly beheaded hundreds of people just because they were followers of Jesus Christ. They recently executed three on video, and then demanded $1 million ransom for dozens more they had kidnapped. So far, about 1.3 million Christians in the Middle East have been murdered, imprisoned, or have fled, leaving homes and jobs behind during this recent crisis. One Christian pastor in Lebanon reports that there are many Christians there who need vital medical attention, milk for their children, and money for life’s everyday necessities. They have no way to provide for themselves. There are fears that the Christian minority in many Middle Eastern countries may be completely wiped out.

   The Middle East isn’t the only place where Christians are suffering today. The Christian minority in India is being targeted by aggressive Hindu nationalists, that now have the backing of the government. Christian pastors are being murdered in parts of Latin America—usually for standing up to drug lords. It is reported that Christians are being held in prisons or slave labor camps in North Korea, Eritrea, and China. The wholesale, rape, torture, and slaughter of Christians in Africa by radical Muslim groups is horrific beyond belief.

   In contrast, think about American Christianity. Because we are so comfortable, I fear that we have forgotten that Jesus promised His followers that they would be persecuted. “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you” (John 15:18–19).

   Here is the challenge that you face if you are a Christian: How much do you love Jesus? Do you love Him more than you love being able to live a comfortable life? Are you more concerned about what Jesus thinks about you than you are about what your friends and family think about you? A real Christian loves Jesus more than anything else. That is why Jesus said, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23).

   Risking all to follow Jesus begins to make sense when we understand how much He deserves our loyalty.

   First of all, Jesus deserves our loyalty because He is the Almighty Creator. “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created” (Revelation 4:11).

   Secondly, we should want to follow Christ no matter what because He rescued us from the eternal results of our awful sin. “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing” (Revelation 5:12).

   Following Jesus can be difficult, and 2016 may be no exception, even here in America. The rewards, though, are amazing. To someone who has a relationship with Jesus, experiencing His love is more wonderful and more precious than anything else.

   Paul, who suffered much just because he followed Jesus, gives us this amazing promise that every Christian can carry into the New Year: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? … But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35, 37–39).