Good Morning Friends,
Jesus said, “If anyone is ashamed of me and
my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be
ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” (Mark
8:38)
We had a conference here in Corvallis a few
years back at which the speakers talked about God at 2000. The basic thrust of the conference was that
there are many ways to God and all of them are equally good. Therefore, if a person holds to the exclusive
view that Jesus is the only way to God, then he must be a short-sighted idiot! With opinions like that dominating the
academic world, even the religious academic world, you can see why there would
be a temptation for a person to keep his Christianity to himself.
Then there’s the homosexual agenda which
rejects the biblical teachings because they don’t fit with modern thought. The assumption is that anything that does not
agree with modern thought must be wrong.
Modern thought is the authoritative standard, certainly not ancient
biblical writings! With the culture
having largely adopted that view you can see why there would be a temptation
for a person to keep his Christianity to himself.
I could tell you a number of stories of
people who have shared their faith with family, friends, or co-workers only to
be told that wasn’t something they wanted to hear anything more about. Many responses to the message of Jesus aren’t
very positive. There is a temptation to
get gun-shy, keeping your faith to yourself to avoid the potential of ridicule.
If these are the views of the world, why
bother, why make an effort to share what you believe? Well, there are actually several reasons, but
Jesus provides a good one in the above text.
It’s a promise from Him -- if you will faithfully stand up for what you
believe about Jesus then He’ll faithfully stand up for you before the
Father. That seems like a pretty good
reason to me!
His, by Grace,
Steve
No comments:
Post a Comment