A Thought For The Week Of March 9

"I tell you, whoever publicly acknowledges me before others, the Son of Man will also acknowledge before the angels of God." (Luke 12:8) It's become rather commonplace in the world today to hear people - even people of faith - make the argument that religion and faith are personal things that shouldn't be talked about publicly, but are just to be lived out privately within home or church. It's an understandable sentiment - even for a person of faith. The truth is that it's generally much easier to live our faith out privately and not talk about it too openly. There's a risk involved if you choose to be too open about your faith. People might not give you a chance. They might not like you, they might not agree with you, they might mock you. You might have to defend yourself and there's at least a chance that you might be ostracized. All these are potential risks if you're too open about what you believe. And - just maybe - that's the point. If there's no risk to faith then it's really all rather meaningless. If there's no potential sacrifice involved with your faith then your faith isn't actually worth very much. To have faith (to believe in something, whatever it is) but not to be willing to talk about it is being inconsistent. To be a Christian - but to try not to be too openly Christian in case some people don't like us sharing? Why? Surely we can't be ashamed of the one we have chosen to follow? I'm not talking about Bible thumping or hitting people over the head with the gospel, or with using God's word as a weapon to threaten people with. I'm just saying that we need to be willing to be open about being disciples of Jesus. Otherwise, being a disciple of Jesus is rather meaningless.