The Recognition, part 14: Ashamed

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. (Luke 9:24-26 NASB)

We come now to the climax of this passage. Jesus addressed the issue of denying Him to save your physical life, or denying self and being willing to give up your physical life in order to save your soul. What good is it, Jesus asked the people, if you gain the whole world, or kosmos, but lose your soul? This kosmos can mean every created thing or the universe. Even if we owned and had control of everything in the entire universe, what good would that be if we end up spending eternity in hell? There was a popular song some years ago that said, "Money can't buy you love," and it was true. Money also cannot buy eternal security. In fact, sometimes money is a deterrent to eternal security because of the temptation to trust the security of money rather than the One who has entrusted it to us. 

The last sentence in today's Scripture passage sums things up succinctly. If we are ashamed of Jesus and His words now, He will be ashamed of us when He comes in His glory. Vine's Expository Dictionary uses an interesting phrase. It says this word is used in a different passage in the sense of "God not being ashamed to be called the God of the believers." What a sobering thought! The idea that we could be such poor examples of Christ that God would be ashamed to be associated with us as our God is heartbreaking, isn't it? 

When God looks down from heaven with that great cloud of witnesses, I do not want Him to say, "if she's going to act like that, I wish she'd quit claiming Me."  What I want Him to say is, "Look at her! That's my girl! She's the one I can count on to obey.  She looks just like my Son!" Isn't that what you want Him to say about you? If so, let's be sure we act (and think) in ways that please our Lord and make Him proud to be called our God.