Prayer
Before you read, I invite you to pray this prayer based on Psalm 119:99-100
LORD, grant me more insight every day as I meditate on Your teachings;
grant me more understanding as I apply myself to obeying Your precepts.
Amen.
Briefly prepare your heart in silence, and ask the Holy Spirit to awaken your awareness to the voice of God, coming to you through His Word.
Reading
Jesus is very clear with His disciples. He leaves us in no doubt that we are commanded and called to make our allegiance to Jesus a matter of public knowledge.
32 ‘Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. 33 But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.
As a Christian disciple I am to make my allegiance to Jesus public knowledge. I cannot be faithful to Jesus while insisting that my faith is a private matter that I don’t talk about. Why would I not be open about it? Am I ashamed of Jesus? Do I value the opinion of people so highly that I am willing to pretend I do not belong to Jesus, simply to be accepted and to “belong” in some group of “friends”?
This view of a private faith in Jesus was very popular in previous generations of nominal Christians, but it is patently out of line with what it means to acknowledge Jesus before others.
Today the Christian disciple can disown Jesus in different ways. We might disown Jesus by the way we live – behaving no differently than the world around us in our approach to morality, sexuality, integrity, power or money (to name but a few). We might disown Jesus by our silence – choosing not to speak up against some form of evil or injustice, or simply by hiding our faith and failing to admit publicly that we belong to Christ. Worst of all, we might disown Jesus by actually saying that we are not a Christian when we are put on the spot by someone.
But Jesus invites us into the freedom that can only be found when we boldly take the Name of Christ and make it undeniably clear to everyone around us that our allegiance is to Him as our Saviour, Lord and King. When we live unashamedly aligned to Christ and His people, we take away the power of the temptation to deny Christ before people, because our decision is already made and everyone knows it.
Contemplation
Please take time to ponder what Jesus has commanded us. Turn these declarations over in your mind. Keep them in mind throughout the day and live in step with Your King, Jesus.
As a disciple of Jesus Christ:
- I will acknowledge Christ publicly, and
- I will refuse to deny Him,
- because He loves me and I love Him!
Holy Spirit, empower me day by day to acknowledge Jesus Christ loudly and clearly, so that all may know that I am His disciple Amen.
P.S. As we continue to focus on praying for Iranian believers this week, click here for an article with some more helpful input on how we might pray.
Dave's Diary 
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