Bible Reading: 1 John 4:2-3
In Mark 8:38, our Lord warned us that if we are “ashamed†of Him and of His Word in this fallen world, He will be “ashamed of [us] when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.†What worse fate could possibly befall the true Christian than to have Christ ashamed of him or her at His coming?
The story is told of a youth who overheard two teachers speaking of her mother before a school play. One teacher asked the other if the mother of the young girl, who was the star of the play, would be attending the performance. Having never met the girl’s mother, the teacher hoped to have an opportunity to do so that evening. The other teacher explained, however, that the mother, whose face was badly scarred from burns that she suffered years earlier, had stopped coming out in public after her daughter told her she
was ashamed of her.
“The real shame of it all,†explained the one teacher to the other, “is that the mother suffered her burns saving her daughter from a house fire when her daughter was only an infant.†Upon overhearing this conversation, the young girl immediately broke down in tears. Not only had her mother never told her the story of how she suffered her burns, but she had asked others to keep it a secret from her as well, for fear that she might somehow blame herself for her mother’s scars. Just imagine how ashamed of herself that young girl suddenly became and how proud of her mother she must have been after learning that her mother had once saved her life.Â
You and I know for sure who is to blame for the scars of Christ. We are! Christ’s scars were suffered for our salvation. In light of this, how can anyone saved by Christ be ashamed of such a Savior. For any true recipient of Christ’s salvation to be ashamed of Christ as his or her Savior is truly absurd.