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| NOT ASHAMED OF JESUS OR HIS MESSAGE |
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1:16For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
There is a tendency for believers to "sit down, shut up, and keep our ideas to ourselves." Usually, with the preaching, sharing, telling of the gospel there comes some sort of negative response by the hearers. Either we are challenged by the hearers to defend such a claim, or we are mocked and persecuted for our beliefs. Jesus understood the pressure of taking a stand for Him, as He said, "If you are ashamed of me before men, then I will be ashamed of you before my Heavenly Father." I have had the opportunity to lead many Christians in "witnessing events, and in the class room and the one thing that holds us back is fear. Fear of failure! Fear of rejection! Fear of looking like an idiot! Fear of being beaten or suffering for your actions. I know it is real, and if you said that there was no apprehension about sharing the gospel then I would either conclude you are a super saint or you are a liar. Even when I stand to preach in a church where it is not a hostile environment, there is still that fear, of all those things above. Yet even-though there is some apprehension about sharing the gospel, Paul exclaimed: "I AM NOT ASHAMED!"
The reason the Apostle Paul was not ashamed of the gospel is because he was persuaded in his own heart and mind that the gospel is real! Paul experienced the life-changing power of the gospel in his own life. He could not help but speak of what he had seen and experienced. The same should be for us. If you are truly saved, then you will know the reality of the Christian experience. You will know in your heart and mind that Jesus is alive and that He can do for others what He has done for you. Growing up as a second generation Christian, being raised in the church, and being a Pastor's kid it was hard to define my Christian experience because I had never been "in sin" and at the end of my rope. How can I share the gospel effectively if I had never been saved from anything? It wasn't until I went through the late James Kennedy's Evangelism Explosion program that I realized that I needed Jesus as much as anybody else. In his explanation of the gospel Dr. Kennedy said that the 10 commandments were like a chain. You break one and you break them all. They were linked together as a unit and even if you kept 9 and broke 1 you still were guilty of the whole thing. He used a visual illustration 1 rotten egg in a mix of 12 eggs. He asked, "Do you suppose that you could scoop out the rotten egg and separate it from the other good eggs?" Of course not! The whole batch had been contaminated. It is the same with breaking one of the 10 commandments. His point was we are all sinners. This is what the Bible says: "There is none righteous no not one." So, even if you have been a "good person" all of your life, the Bible says, you are still a sinner. And God will by no means let the guilty go unpunished. Because of this sinful state that we are in, even if it is only a little sin, it is still enough for us to need a Savior. Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. He came to redeem you, and therefore you can experience the love of God that is shed abroad in your heart. You too can have confidence in the gospel and not be ashamed of it, because THE POWER OF GOD HAS COME TO YOU!
Another reason that Paul was not ashamed of the Gospel was because of the Power that the Gospel has. The gospel has the power to change anyone and everyone that will believe. There is no sin too great or a person too bad that the gospel can not reach and change. The gospel has power, and the Bible tells us that God's word the Bible never returns void, but it always accomplishes that task in what it is set out to do. God has chosen the foolishness of the cross the message of "Christ Crucified" to confound the wise. However, to those of us who believe it is the power of God.
Finally, the reason Paul was not ashamed is because the gospel is available to everyone not just a select few! The word "gospel" means "Good News, Glad Tidings!" The message of the gospel certainly is good news! God loves every man! God loves people so much that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever would believe in Him would not perish but have everlasting life. It is good news, because God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. It is good news, because God demonstrated His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Jesus died once and for all, for the godly and the ungodly to bring them to God. It is good news, because Jesus who knew no sin, became sin for us that we might have the righteousness of God in Him. It is good news, because He took our judgment for us so that we might live. There is definitely no shame in that message. It is a message of love, a message of hope, a message of redemption. No greater love has any man than this than to lay down his life for a friend, and God counted you a friend even while you were still far from Him. The message of the gospel came to the Jew first, Jesus came unto His own, but His own received Him not. So, God in His infinite mercy made us all heirs to all the promises of God. All the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ. It doesn't matter if you were born a Jew, a Samaritan, or a Gentile all that matters to God is that you accept the gospel of Jesus Christ. The good news that He died on the cross for your sin, was buried, and rose again from the dead. If we will confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in our hearts that God has raised (Jesus) from the dead, we shall be saved! Saved from what? Saved from our own sin. Saved from judgment. Saved from ourselves! Saved from the presence and power of sin!
Let us not be ashamed of the gospel of Christ, be bold, be patient, be prayerful, and know that the gospel has power to save! It saved you didn't it? Then it can save others as well! |
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| There are a lot of truths contained in this blog my friend...and truly as children of the Most High God, we have a responsibility to blow the trumpet in Zion and to sound the alarm. Of course, there may be opposition, and many times others don't want to *hear* what you have to say because of what they have been programmed to believe in the past. As the Apostle of Paul, and even Jesus as our role models, let us declare the whole counsel of God before this dying world. God in times past, did come to His own...the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel, of which Judah (Jews) are but one tribe, and His own received Him not, but as many as receive Him now, to them, He does give power to become the Sons of God.....Yes the gospel is the power of God unto salvation.....Salvation *is* a process....and he that endures until *the end* shall be saved.....and when Jesus the righteous judge shall come, he shall declare the saved from the unsaved at the first resurrection. Therefore, I work out my soul salvation with fear and trembling before the Most High God....and of this, I am not ashamed! |
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| you are right when you say that sometimes fear takes a hold of us.........but we must remember that the enemy is under our feet,he is defeated,and we have authority,victory and power over him,give to us by Jesus........so we should not be ashamed to spread the gospel of Jesus and to share what He has done for us and what He could do for others.....we should want to see those held captive by something set free.....we should jump at all the opportunities that God gives us to share His Son with the them,after all He shared His Son with us(by God's grace we were called into the Kingdom) |
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