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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