The Cross Still Offends

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The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. – John 1:5

The Cross Still Offends

by Pastor Rich Bitterman

The bullet tore the air in half.

A folding chair rattled. A Bible dropped. A young man slumped sideways beneath a white event tent, eyes wide with the weight of eternity.

It was supposed to be a conversation. A “prove me wrong” segment. But this time, rebuttal came not with words, but with a rifle.

Charlie Kirk didn’t get to finish his sentence.

I got the news just before prayer meeting. I contemplated this death as I prepared to lead the saints in prayer. But I didn’t feel like praying. Not tonight. My hands were still. My mouth was ready. But my soul was pacing. Angry. Grieving. Tempted.

Tempted to grow quiet. Tempted to sit this one out. Tempted to wonder if any of this, faith, boldness, public gospel witness, is still worth it.

Because hatred in this country isn’t simmering anymore. It is boiling.

Europe is trembling. Israel is burning. Rockets lit the sky over Gaza again. And now, here on American soil, the blood of a Christian apologist paints the pavement of a university quad.

What do you do with that?

What do you say when courage gets gunned down in daylight?

Charlie Kirk was no perfect man. None of us are.

But he had backbone where most of us don’t anymore. He was a believer. Unashamed. Unafraid. He understood that real conversations only happen when truth is welcome at the table. And the truth he carried most was Christ.

He brought the gospel into public space on purpose. Because the gospel isn’t supposed to stay in church basements and private Bible studies. It is meant to confront. It is supposed to offend. It was not made for safety.

The Word became flesh and they nailed Him to a tree.

So of course they came for Charlie.

Of course they reached for a gun.

This is what evil does when it runs out of arguments. It doesn’t reason. It kills.

That’s the part that catches in my throat. Not just the sadness, but the strategy of hell behind it.

The Enemy wants us afraid. He wants us to see what happened to Charlie and backpedal. He wants the rest of us to whisper, to soften the message, to believe the lie that faith should stay private.

But Christ never whispered. He preached in temples, on hillsides, in courtrooms, at dinner tables. And when they told Him to be quiet, He picked up His cross.

Not a symbolic one. A real one. Heavy. Bloody. Splintered.

When Jesus said, “Follow Me,” He didn’t hand out maps. He handed out crosses.

That’s what I remembered tonight.

I sat in our prayer space, surrounded by saints who had brought prayer lists and worn Bibles. And I realized I didn’t want to lead them in mourning. I wanted to lead them into battle. Not with banners or fists, but with open Bibles and tear-stained prayers.

The kind of war that kneels in gravel beside the wounded, hands them living water, and refuses to leave. The kind that speaks both mercy and judgment without flinching. The kind Charlie died for.

This world is not a friend to grace. But grace isn’t fragile.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Paul didn’t leave that question unanswered.

“Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” —Romans 8:35

He piles up every fear you and I carry and then sets them on fire.

“No. In all these things we are more than conquerors.”

That means bullets don’t win. Slander doesn’t win. Prison bars don’t win. Death doesn’t win.

You can lose everything in this world and still walk into glory with your head lifted high. Because the love of God in Christ Jesus isn’t suspended by headlines or gunfire.

There are two worlds unfolding right now.

The one you see. And the one you don’t.

One is filled with chaos. The other is filled with crowns.

I believe that when Charlie Kirk’s body slumped to the concrete, his soul stood upright in heaven. Not limping. Not silenced. Not stunned. But crowned.

He didn’t fall. He crossed.

The great cloud of witnesses gained another voice. And I wonder if Stephen met him there. The first martyr. The man who got stoned for preaching what the crowd didn’t want to hear. The man who, in his final breath, saw the heavens open. The only time in all of Scripture we see Jesus standing at the right hand of God, rising to receive one of His own.

I like to believe He stood again.

Are you afraid?

Do you feel the tremble in your spirit?

Do you wonder if it’s still worth it to speak boldly, to carry your Bible, to preach the gospel in a world that doesn’t just disagree but wants you gone?

You’re not alone.

You’re not weak for feeling that. But you are called to something stronger than silence.

Don’t let fear become your theology.

The cost is high. But the reward?

The reward is Christ. And He’s not a concept. He’s a King.

Heaven is not empty.

It is filled with scarred saints who refused to bow to fear. Men who were stoned. Women who were burned. Children who sang while the flames climbed.

And every last one of them arrived.

There is no difficulty that can cancel the promise of God. There is no persecution that can derail your destination. There is no sniper’s bullet that can separate a soul from Christ.

Your life is not measured by how long you live on earth, but by how much of it was spent pointing to heaven.

Paul said, “I have fought the good fight… I have kept the faith.” Then he looked toward the reward. Not a monument. Not a mention in history books. But a crown. Handed to him by the One with nail marks still in His hands.

So let me say this clearly. We do not mourn like the world mourns. We do not write eulogies dripping with sentiment. We sing songs of resurrection. We carry the banner of a Kingdom that does not tremble.

Charlie Kirk did not die for nothing. He died carrying the same message you and I must now carry forward.

The cross stands tall. The tomb is still empty. And the gospel has not lost one ounce of power.

So pick up your cross. Wipe your eyes. And keep going.

The crown is worth it. The King is coming. And there’s still time to speak.

Even if they shoot.

Lord, give us courage. And if not safety, give us joy. For we carry not just the message, but the marks. And You are worth every bruise.

Prayer: Lord of eternity, give us the strength not to shrink back, not to slow down, but to follow You wholeheartedly, fearlessly. Help us to walk with You, run with You, and finish well. We thank You for the promise of eternal rewards in Heaven, most of all the promise of meeting You face to face and hearing the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” In Jesus’ name, amen.

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Published by seekingdivineperspective

I am a forgiven sinner and adopted child of God, seeking to see life from His perspective - as opposed to the world's flawed perspective - and living my life accordingly.

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21 thoughts on “The Cross Still Offends”

  4. I read about 50 postings on bluesky and am amazed at the lies about Kirk one finds there; from accusing him of being willing to make his 10 year old daughter deliver a child to calling for the stoning of gays to calling him “a frothing racist.”
The best posts were from leftists who at least admitted murder was not the way forward in dialog. “Someone walked up to a person giving a speech and shot them. That should disturb anyone, and makes us all afraid.”
    Anyone espousing truth will be damned by those who refuse to love the truth.
“The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.” 2 Thessalonians 2-9-10
    But stand firm we must, loving even the assassin, if he is identified, but in love, allowing him to bear the consequence of his sin.

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    1. Thanks for your feedback, C. A. As for your last statement, I agree. Jesus would have us love even the assassin and pray for him. Can you imagine the glory the Lord would get from his being radically saved and joining the voices of truth? Even in prison, one can have influence. Case in point, the apostle Paul. 😉

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  5. The problem I have with Mr Kirk and a lot of politicians on both sides is that it is more important with the 2 amendment to bear arms but not to have strict regulations for people to have and own a gun and in most cases too many guns. For years we all have watched our children being killed in our schools. Instead of people sitting down across a table and talk we teach our children that if we hate someone or disagree with someone to kill them. Our children are taking guns to school and I mean little children. As adults we need to stop and think of what we are teaching them. 9/11 happened with outside of America and what is happening is inside of America. Jesus tells us the second greatest commandment is to live our neighbor no matter how different they are to us. Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me

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    1. Amen, Eileen.

      When I taught speech, we had lessons in persuasive speech, debates, and logic. I stressed the importance of being able to communicate your views articulately and reasonably. When the only argument a person has is violence, he has failed.

      I’ve been saying for a long time that it should be harder to get a gun. I’m not sure what the requirements are these days, but it should be at least as hard as getting a driver’s license. – classes, training, and passing exams not only in gun safety and knowing the gun laws but also demonstrating proficiency in shooting. It should be impossible for just anyone to purchase a firearm. Having said that, I appreciate Charlie’s explaining the reasons for the Second Amendment. Our founding fathers knew that when people are defenseless, a tyrannical government can just move in and take over, and people lose their freedom. Historically, this has been the case with totalitarian governments. Two of the first things they do are 1.) disarm the citizens so they can’t fight back and 2.) take over the media to control what the people can and can’t know. Fortunately, today with the internet the latter is virtually impossible.

      Bottom line, though: Mankind’s problem isn’t guns (or knives or arsenic) but the sin that separates us from God. And as Charlie always said, the only way to reconcile us to the Father is through His Son, Jesus Christ.

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      1. What Charlie Kirk believed in I do not as I listen to him and so many others they are a Christian in name only. They like many men believe when a woman or a child is rape that they should be force to carry, I am a survior or rape by my father at age sixteen as well as his father at age seven. When I was little my mom saved me and a sister however the lawyers try to blame us and this still happens today always blame the woman or girl. My mom saved us and my grandfather died in jail however when my father rape me she had already died from cancer there was no one to save me. I am pro-choice as well as okay if anyone I know even family is a part of the LGBTQ community. Understanding a daughter who absorb her twin while I carried her has taught me that so much take place when a child is in a mother’s womb and at times too many times that a person being born male or female is not so cut and dry. Too many times doctors lie I was never told that I was carrying twins and before I had to have a emergency c-section I nearly died as well as my daughter however my ex-husband knew and never told me. My daughter and I just found out that her stomach is way to high in her body (she has many problems) and no one told us as well when my daughter was reading her medical chart we found out that her cancer has spread and not one doctor had a conversation about it. I don’t hide the fact I dislike the currect adminstration as well as CEO because of the division in our country, why can’t all people who call themselves Christians act more like Christ and less of themselves. Years ago we heard the saying WWJD-what would Jesus do perhaps it is time to ask our Lord and Savior what should we do with all of this hate in our land.

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      2. Eileen, I’m truly sorry you went through all that. We live in a very fallen world, and there is definitely evil in it – in all of us. I have heard some of the “quotes” of Charlie Kirk, and many of the ones that purported to “prove” him evil were not taken in their full context. One was even a clip of him saying some very racist things, which turned out to be part of a longer conversation where he was QUOTING a racist in order to then refute what that person said! So much of this kind of thing is being done on both sides that I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t trust a thing I read on social media. (Or see/hear, now that there’s AI.) I try not to read or watch the “shorts” unless I have time to go to the full interview or speech and see it all in context.
        I think the true test of a Christian is whether or not we can love our enemies, and that’s difficult to impossible, even with people who disagree with us. Only with Jesus’ help can we obey God’s command to love, and even then, we will always fall short. All we can do is pray the Lord will help us have pure hearts, because only He knows our hearts, and only He will be our judge. God bless you. – Annie

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      3. I have no more response to this man I am not a Christian nationalist and I don’t agree with what he had said in the past. I am proud to say I am a liberal I am pro choice I believe the Delia woman makes is no one’s business. I believe we need gun control and we welcome all

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