Ashamed of Jesus

 We live in a very sinful world today. The ways of this world are so opposite to what God has set forth for us that people are very opposed to Jesus and to Christians. They make fun of us. They ridicule us. Soon there could come a time when we will be convicted of crimes because of what we believe and what we do. I know that is hard to believe, but I do not think it is an overstatement of our reality. Therefore, it makes it difficult for us to speak up in public about Jesus and God's Word. It can cause us to be afraid of others, or even  be ashamed of Jesus. We must never allow this to happen to us. Mark told us why this is true. (Mark 8:38) Jesus said that whoever is ashamed of Him and His words in this adulterous and sinful generation will find that He is ashamed of them when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels. It is bad enough for us to be ashamed of Jesus, but it is a terrible thought that our Lord would be ashamed of us. Let's not cause that to happen.

As Christians, we should be ashamed of our sins and our failures. Our shame should lead us to confess those sins and repent of them, so we can be clean before the Lord and the people around us. We should never be ashamed of the things that are good and right. After all, we are the light of the world and the salt of the earth. If we fail to stand up for the Lord Jesus and His words, we become useless to the Lord in this world. No, we must shine the light of truth to all around us, and we must preserve the truth like salt preserves meat. Also, we should especially not be ashamed of Jesus. He took our sins upon Him on the Cross. He took our shame upon Him and died in our place. He loved us so much that He took our punishment and ridicule, so that we could become one of His children and enjoy life eternal. How could we ever be ashamed of Jesus? The only way is if we are more concerned about our own well being than we are about Jesus, the truth, and those around us that need salvation through Jesus. We must not let that happen. We should be very honored to be a Christian and to know Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Then, we should make that known to everyone around us all the time.

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Tomorrow, I intend to read Mark 9-12.