Not Ashamed
I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes. Romans 1:16
If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, the we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.
Daniel 3:17-18
The other day my granddaughters, Faith and Madelyn, wrote letters to my nephew-in-law, who is currently in Afghanistan. Jeff is their hero. In their words, “he is in the war, keeping scary guys away.” It is important to them to lift Jeff up in prayer and to send him notes and gifts. To them Jeff is a defender of their faith. They understand, to the best of their ability, at five and three, that somewhere out there is a threat. I do not have the heart to tell them that the threat is much closer to home.
The paradox for me, is that everywhere you look you see “Christians.” Just the other night at the end of the Super Bowl, the young man being interviewed immediately said, “To God be the glory.” After answering a couple of questions he repeated that phrase. My first thought was good for you! My next thought was, please don’t show up in the media a week from now for having done some awful thing. I don’t know that young man, of course, but in the moment he seemed sincere. I hope it wasn’t just for that moment. He had a great platform. His team had just won the big game. He was allowed to say whatever he wanted. This is America after all. We are all allowed freedom of speech. Or are we?
Too much emphasis is placed on political correctness. We have all been asked to, if not bow, at least bend, to certain other gods. Don’t do it! When we bend, when go along to get along, when we shirk our beliefs for the sake of political correctness or polite behavior, we do not bring glory to God. No, in those moments we show that we are, on some level, ashamed of the gospel.
It is time to stop thinking of what holding onto our faith and professing it will do to our circumstances and begin to live from the position of what denying it will do to our relationship with God. Going along to get along doesn’t sound bad. In some cases, think husband and wife, co-workers, boss and employee, it’s almost a given. We don’t always agree with those closest to us and so we compromise. If that compromise is about something innocuous, that’s no big deal. If it involves our faith in the one true God, that is different.
We think of it as submitting to the authority of the government, which even Jesus did at times, (Matthew 17:24-27) but we have to be very careful. When submitting means contradicting our Christianity we cannot submit. In that case compliance becomes unacceptable compromise. When we think of it in terms of being “ashamed of the gospel” it takes on a much more serious tone. The men of God in Scripture were literally tortured for their beliefs. At the present time the worst case scenario in front of me is possibly some trouble at work. We say that God is most important to us. We applaud those Christians who have sacrificed their lives for their beliefs. We all need to be willing to sacrifice and yet we sometimes balk at the idea. It could cost us friends, jobs or even family members but God will never leave us or forsake us and we more than owe him our loyalty.
If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, the we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.
Daniel 3:17-18
The other day my granddaughters, Faith and Madelyn, wrote letters to my nephew-in-law, who is currently in Afghanistan. Jeff is their hero. In their words, “he is in the war, keeping scary guys away.” It is important to them to lift Jeff up in prayer and to send him notes and gifts. To them Jeff is a defender of their faith. They understand, to the best of their ability, at five and three, that somewhere out there is a threat. I do not have the heart to tell them that the threat is much closer to home.
The paradox for me, is that everywhere you look you see “Christians.” Just the other night at the end of the Super Bowl, the young man being interviewed immediately said, “To God be the glory.” After answering a couple of questions he repeated that phrase. My first thought was good for you! My next thought was, please don’t show up in the media a week from now for having done some awful thing. I don’t know that young man, of course, but in the moment he seemed sincere. I hope it wasn’t just for that moment. He had a great platform. His team had just won the big game. He was allowed to say whatever he wanted. This is America after all. We are all allowed freedom of speech. Or are we?
Too much emphasis is placed on political correctness. We have all been asked to, if not bow, at least bend, to certain other gods. Don’t do it! When we bend, when go along to get along, when we shirk our beliefs for the sake of political correctness or polite behavior, we do not bring glory to God. No, in those moments we show that we are, on some level, ashamed of the gospel.
It is time to stop thinking of what holding onto our faith and professing it will do to our circumstances and begin to live from the position of what denying it will do to our relationship with God. Going along to get along doesn’t sound bad. In some cases, think husband and wife, co-workers, boss and employee, it’s almost a given. We don’t always agree with those closest to us and so we compromise. If that compromise is about something innocuous, that’s no big deal. If it involves our faith in the one true God, that is different.
We think of it as submitting to the authority of the government, which even Jesus did at times, (Matthew 17:24-27) but we have to be very careful. When submitting means contradicting our Christianity we cannot submit. In that case compliance becomes unacceptable compromise. When we think of it in terms of being “ashamed of the gospel” it takes on a much more serious tone. The men of God in Scripture were literally tortured for their beliefs. At the present time the worst case scenario in front of me is possibly some trouble at work. We say that God is most important to us. We applaud those Christians who have sacrificed their lives for their beliefs. We all need to be willing to sacrifice and yet we sometimes balk at the idea. It could cost us friends, jobs or even family members but God will never leave us or forsake us and we more than owe him our loyalty.
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