How are you dying?

"When the Roman officer who stood facing Him saw how He had died, he exclaimed, "This man truly was the Son of God!" -- Mark 15:39

Not exactly a warm fuzzy verse.

Taken from the heart of the crucifixion, it's the moment when Jesus utters His last words and breathes his last breath. It's the moment when all of heaven mourns, all of hell rejoices and all of creation stops. It's the moment the God-Man dies.

And yet, it's at this moment when a pagan Roman soldier comes to proclaim Jesus Christ as the very Son of God.

This is a soldier who most likely just hours earlier had taken a very active part in beating, whipping and humiliating Jesus. He may have even been the one to shove the crown of thorns upon His head.

It is almost a certainty that this soldier was not one of Jesus' followers. He had not heard the great Sermon on the Mount. He had not been taught how to pray the Lord's Prayer. He was not found sitting at Jesus' feet with Mary.

In fact, we can safely assume that this soldier had little or no contact with Jesus as He was preaching, teaching or evangelizing. He probably never witnessed a single one of His miracles, and likely would not have believed in them even if he saw them.

He cared little, if at all, about any foolish prophecies or predictions that surrounded Jesus. All he cared about was inflicting the most pain possible upon a convicted criminal as ordered by the law of the land that day.

And yet, without any sermon, without any plan of evangelism, without any song of response, without any altar call, this hardened soldier came to know the true, divine identity of Jesus just by watching how He died.

I wonder if that speaks a word for us today.

Instead of trying to come up with new ideas and plans to win people for Christ, maybe we should live out the remaining days of our lives so passionately in love with Jesus that people notice.

Maybe instead of putting so much emphasis on evangelism programs, we should understand how our daily lives speak volumes to folks around us.

And they are watching.

Watching our response to suffering, to death, to disease, to persecution, to hardship, to failure, to hurt, to pain.

It's all well and good to respond well when things go well. But when we are put on the cross of daily living, what are folks seeing?

It's been said that we start dying the very second we are born. We call it growing up, but ultimately, we are dying.

If that's true, how many people are coming to know the Son of God by watching how we die?