Romans 1:16 “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.”
Paul wasn’t ashamed, so why am I?
One of our biggest problems has arisen out of the privatization of our faith. The result of a privatized faith is that Christ’s lordship is restricted to certain times and places in our compartmentalized lives. We may hang him on the coat peg with our jacket as we enter the office, or in the locker in the changing room before training on the team, and only pick him up at the end of the day’s work or after the training session. People aren’t attracted by the hypocrisy of Sunday religion; they want the reality of a consistent and dynamic 24-7 relationship which transcends the suffocating pressures and ambitions of day-to-day existence.
Often our problem doesn’t lie in the fact that we’re in the wrong place – rather we’re not living out the reality of our faith where we are.
How can we make sure we are what we should be where we are?
We need to immerse ourselves afresh in the Scriptures, to be struck anew by the all-encompassing nature of Christ’s call on the original disciples’ lives. Jesus wants to turn us into wide-eyed radicals. If being ‘nice’ is our highest aspiration, the gospel is emasculated and becomes simply life-enhancing instead of life-transforming. Nice people are never offensive, and yet at some stage the gospel must offend, because it highlights areas of inconsistency and hypocrisy in my own life, as well as in the lives of those who reject Jesus for who he claims to be. If our greatest virtue is that we don’t offend anyone, then there will be no potency or passion in our message or movement, which ends up being okay news instead of the best news in the world.
Lord, I choose to be totally unashamed about you. Use me to share this great news today. Amen!
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