Matthew 10:32-33 promises, “If anyone publicly acknowledges Me as his friend, I will openly acknowledge him as My friend before My Father in heaven. But if anyone publicly denies Me, I will openly deny him before My Father in heaven.
Many Christians complain about the lack of Christian ethic or value in the public arena. Those Christians over 50 remember saying the pledge of allegiance in school with the ‘God’ word in it, and some even prayed there. They remember when society as a whole was pretty much in agreement about right and wrong and held each other to those same standards.
Now God is ignored at best and banished at worst from the public sector leaving every person to do what is right in their own eyes. What went wrong?
Christians fell down on their mandate to constantly and consistently testify to the reality of God in their lives. Christians adhere to the felt rule of law that God must not be mentioned in the school, government or marketplace and so they don’t.
As Christians ceased talking about their relationship with their God they ceased thinking about Him and so ceased acting like Him thus becoming indistinguishable from those who had nothing to do with God in the first place.
The remedy to the problem is to embrace the mandate given to us first by the Lord Jesus, ‘go and make disciples,’ and further developed by the Apostle Paul who told us we are Christ’s ambassadors through whom God is making His appeal to people to come to Him through Jesus the Savior.
We need to see ourselves like the first Christians saw themselves – the salt and light of the world that must be poured out upon a dark and dying world. We must no longer be ashamed of our Savior or fear the repercussions of men who oppose Him.
The Church was built by those who loved Jesus more than their own lives even to the point of death so we must return to such a commitment. God requires such devotion to Him and promises reward to those who do acknowledge Him before people but woe to those who claim to be His but fear identifying themselves with Him in public.
If the Church is to grow in influence then the Church, the people, must grow in obedience to God’s command to be His witness in the world.
