Not Ashamed

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’"—Romans 1:16-17

Shame is something that is becoming increasingly lacking in our culture. With the proliferation of the Internet, numerous scandals, alternative lifestyles, the decentralization of truth, and an educational system that has anchored itself in the self-esteem movement, we have forgotten what it is to be ashamed of something. Indeed, what was once considered shameful, now gets the headlines, becomes enshrined in legislation, and is considered to be normative. We have become like the Israelites in Jeremiah’s day and don’t “know how to blush”—Jeremiah 6:15; 8:12.

In our world today, it seems that the only thing that is routinely mocked and put down is the follower of Christ. Hostility, mocking and condescension are the lingua franca of the world, directed toward Christians. With news media continually poised to knock down whatever bastion of truth remains, Christians are relegated to the island of intellectual suicide, not so much hated as ignored, left to wallow and die of starvation, surrounded by a sea of tolerance, without any hope of influence, left to the realm of the pseudo-spiritual, removed from greater society. The only kind of shame that this world recognizes is not any of their own—they do not acknowledge and are not ashamed of what God calls sin. No, the shame they recognize is the shame that they expect Christians to have because they follow a fable, a myth, an outdated remnant of morality anchored to a time of ignorance and fear—washed away by the achievement of science and progress.

Words still carry meaning, and although the world tries to con followers of Christ into a corner of powerlessness, shame and regret, the truth of God remains. When time comes to an end, shame will be experienced by all of those who have failed to trust in Christ. For all who have rejected the Lord of life, God will expose all of their rhetoric and repartee as shameful and scandalous. They will spend eternity in isolated misery, alone with the gnawing awareness of the greatest opportunity lost, washed away by waves of God’s immensity.

The believer in Christ lives in the midst of a hostile world, only by faith in the risen Christ. Although the world will stop at nothing in its attempt to shame a Christian into silence, we cannot and will not be silent. We cannot be, for we are not ashamed of what God has done in our stead. We know that even though the world thinks of us and our belief as foolish, we know it is the wisdom and power of God. We have been transformed by our faith in Him. God gave His Son to die, to expose the world as lost in lies of sin and self, adrift at sea in the raft of its own rebellion. He has shown His grace and mercy to us so that we might be living sacrifices, demonstrating by the combined threads of our lives the wonderful tapestry of God’s life-giving and love-pouring story. We need not be ashamed. God has done it. What the world considers shameful, God honors. And what God sees as shameful will be seen for what it truly is at the end of time—stripped of all excuses and explanation, seen as naked and deserving of God’s judgment.

My brother or sister, I pray that as a believer in Christ, you will not be ashamed, despite what this world attempts to throw at you or do to you as you continually seek Christ. Be on guard against the enemy, knowing that what you are doing is not in vain. God will reward you on that great and awesome day when He reveals Himself as the Lord of the Universe. Take heart and take courage, because He will bring it to pass—to His glory and our joy. Amen.