Mark 8:38
If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this
adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them
when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.
The Fear of Denial
I have read so many Scriptures like Matthew 10:33, Luke 12:9, and
Mark 8:38 that I am more afraid of denying Christ before others than I
am admitting to others that I am a follower of Christ. Don’t these
Scriptures give you a little fear when reading them? I know they do me,
but they used to make me more fearful that I’d deny my faith when I was a
newer Christian than they do today. That’s because the older I get, the
less I care about what others think about me. The only real thing that
matters to me now is what God knows about me. I understand that if I
disown God in front of others when asked about Him, He will disown me
before His holy angels, and that’s the last thing I’d ever do. More and
more, I am up front with people about who I am in Christ and that I’m a
new creation in Him (2 Cor. 5:17). In this way, I remove all doubt
before others about Whom I believe in and Whom I strive to obey, and
denying Him would be the last thing I believe I’d do.
What Is Denial?
Denial and the many times it’s used in the New Testament is from the
Greek word “arneomai,” and it means to “not accept, to reject, to
refuse.” Does denial sound more serious now? Sometimes the word deny” is
“ashamed” and basically means the same thing. If I am ashamed of my
faith in front of others, I will be silent about my faith, and that
silence is a sin of omission, one of rejection and refusal to confess
Him in front of others. In Paul’s last letter before he was martyred, he
told Timothy that if we keep enduring in our faith, we can rule with
Christ, but in disowning Him, He will disown us (2 Tim. 2:12). If you
were denied a loan at the bank, you’d likely be ashamed to tell anyone
about it. Denial is to be ashamed of something or someone. When
pressured, do you feel a lot of pressure or a little pressure to deny
Him or refuse to acknowledge Him before others? Today it’s getting
harder and harder for believers to confess their faith before
nonbelievers because the world is getting more and more sinful and
Christians are being ostracized more and more. But I believe the older
you get and the more experienced of a Christian you are, the less you
will care about what others think of your faith in Christ.
Standing for Justice
What do you do when you see something that’s done wrong or some civil
injustice? Doesn’t that make you a bit angry? Isn’t it an attribute of
God to want to seek justice? What would you do if you saw someone
shoplifting, hitting a child, stealing from someone’s car, political
corruption, or any other criminal act? Wouldn’t you feel like speaking
up about that or turning them in? What about when someone uses God’s
name in vain? I have a real hard time with that, especially when
children are present. I don’t like it. Now, imagine how God must feel?
Will you stand up and speak up for social justice issues like fighting
to overturn abortion? What other social evil do you see that the world
accepts as normal but the Bible clearly calls sin? Will you stand up for
your faith and your beliefs when pressured by this world to cave into
sin?
A Closing Prayer
Father God, You alone will avenge every wrong, and no evil deed will
go unpunished unless they have placed their sins under the blood of the
Lamb of God, so thank You for Your forgiveness. Help me to be firm in my
faith in making it public so as to never deny my Savior, Jesus Christ,
in Whose name I pray.
Amen
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