Today is 9.11.25. I remember sitting in the living room of our childhood house, watching the news unfold as planes struck the iconic Twin Towers in New York City in 2001. I was 11, too young to understand all that was happening before my eyes as the towers crashed to the ground and lives were lost; horror settled in. Disbelief lingered, as I wished it were only a bad dream. But it never stopped existing. The death of our citizens persisted. Evil and wars have continued; they serve as a reminder that death comes for us all.
Jumping to today, 9/11 has a different kind of heaviness. It is not immediate, but the faint scar that remains long after a wound has healed. But then you have fresher tragedies that allow the sting of 9/11 to be felt more deeply. One of these tragedies is the death of Iryna Zarutska in her tragic stabbing. A young woman was murdered while riding on Charlotte’s light rail. Her attacker was a man who’d been arrested multiple times, only to be released.
Another instance of tragedy—two students were hospitalized after a shooting at their Colorado high school yesterday; the student gunman died by his own hand, according to officials. Lives altered, families terrified, a community grieving.
Then there is Charlie Kirk—A husband, a loving father of two beautiful children, who will not receive another hug from him. A daughter who will not have her father walk her down the wedding aisle. A son who won’t learn how to be a man from the most important man in his life. All because of a person who’s been blinded to the truth, a shooter who has given themselves over to lies. This resulted in the destruction of a family.
All of these events weigh heavily for different reasons. Yet, it is Kirk’s death that weighs heaviest on me. Maybe it is because I, too, am a Christian. Unafraid to share the truth that marriage is for one man and one woman. That transgenderism is unnatural and a rejection of God. Maybe it is because I could easily see myself being exactly where Kirk found himself, in the crosshairs of those who embrace Satan’s lies. It could be my own four boys and daughter having to go through life without their father. Leaving my wife to care for the well-being of our children without her helper and friend.
Yet, I can’t help but ask: When did disagreement become a death sentence in a nation that claims to prize liberty?
Charlie Kirk’s murder is another of many testimonies screaming that parts of our great nation have truly rejected God, rejected truth, echoing that they have been given over to their flesh. That our nation’s wickedness is increasing. The blind’s hatred only grows against the truth, and they do not see that they are damned to hell apart from saving faith in Christ alone. It is heart-wrenching. Overwhelming. How I long to see a great awakening in our lands. To see people in genuine repentance and acceptance of the whole truth of God’s infallible Word.
There is no question that the forces of Satan are active and alive in our once-great nation. The Lord is the giver of life and liberty; yet some in our nation reject this, fueling widespread wickedness. Only through the blood of Jesus can our nation know renewed hope, a future where discourse is not a death sentence. I am reminded of what Jesus told his disciples in John 15:18-19,
If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.1
Kirk was hated because he belonged to and believed in Jesus. Thank the Lord that not even the most evil person is beyond the grace of Jesus.
Today, we grieve over the evils of our world. We long for justice to be served rightly against all wickedness, and in the same breath, we pray that each person repents and trusts in Christ Jesus for their salvation. I mourn and long for justice, but I have hope because I know that Jesus will ultimately be glorified.
We long for the day evil is forever eradicated when the Lord returns to establish the new heavens and new earth—where sorrow never returns and all who have trusted Christ live with Him forever.
As we long and look for that day, will you join me in praying for a great awakening in our country so that millions will come to salvation? That God would raise up a multitude of faithful believers willing to testify about the work of Jesus for all who repent and believe. God’s not done working in our nation. Nor is the church dead. We are alive and need to answer the call to be bold, unashamed of the gospel.
I leave you with this from Paul in Romans 1:16-17
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”2
Let’s be unashamed of the gospel like Kirk, even if it means being hated for our faith.
