Reflections on the Life of Charlie Kirk

Attribution: Shoot for the Stars, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons. Image cropped from original.

How should one live? What should be the central organizing principle of one’s life? The answer to that second question wholly informs the first one. That which you organize your life around is what will naturally determine how you live. If my life is organized around the pleasures of food, then my stomach will become my god, and I will live in such a way that my life is defined by the pursuit of food and its pleasures (Philippians 3:14-21).  If I make God the center of my life, then everything I do is touched by God, and everything I do has God as its aim and its goal because everything revolves around and radiates both from and toward that center. It’s like spokes and a rim on a wheel.

But know that if you live your life with Christ at the center, then you will be hated, and the people who hate you will try to kill you. They’ll believe in their hearts that they’re offering a service to God – that they’re doing the good and right thing (John 15:18-25, John 16:2-3). Charlie Kirk’s life was their target this past week. His life was a target because he preached Jesus wherever he went. He lived the Jesus life as best he could. He contended in the marketplace of ideas to persuade others to adopt what he believed was the closest thing to a Christlike culture that a secular society could bear. He was murdered for that. Literally. Do not think for an instant that he was killed because he had a clear and particular political leaning. Lots of influential people have that. He was slain because that leaning was informed almost solely with Christ at the center – or at least as best as a flawed human being could center such a thing around Christ.  And he was very good at articulating his divinely inspired positions in a way that others could understand. The unseen satanic realm could not abide his influence in the world they think they own, so a spirit of antichrist flowed through the flesh of fallen human beings in waves that bred, fostered, and quickened violence and hatred. That same spirit worked night and day to intensify opposition to everything Godly, and to distort reality in the perceptions of people, while also rotting out their capacity for rational discernment (Ephesians 6:12). It took advantage of people who rejected God and willingly submitted to fleshly impulses (Galatians 5:19-21). Charlie was hated because he argued things like men can’t be women, that godlessness is detrimental, that the country has profound Christian roots and that it’s a good thing, that right and wrong exists, that personal, sacrificial, benevolent action and compassion are better than insular empathy, or that a government restricted and limited by a free and moral people is better than a Godless government that has free reign in every domain of people’s lives.  He argued these things with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-24).  When he was slaughtered by an assassin’s bullet, the antichrist spirit that possessed unholy groups of people with putrid, demonic hatred, then screamed with glee. Those people sang songs, and encouraged more violence against others. But their glee over his death and their opposition to him was (and is) a hatred toward Christ. Far more than that, it was indisputable evidence that Charlie is now hearing the words, “well done, good and faithful servant.” 

So how should you live your life? In such a way that demonic spirits hate you so much that they’re willing to murder you with glee. How should you live your life? With so much love, that you’re willing to pray for and speak to those people so possessed that they’re willing to murder you. How should you live your life? In such a way that your life looks like the life of Jesus. How should you live your life? In such a way that if they kill you in the public square, that you immediately hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”