"I am not ashamed of the Gospel."
Lies that modern Christians tell
Modernity casts faith as fanatical and fanaticism as distasteful. Thus, those with faith lack commitment. It becomes cool to be half-way in and half-way out, lukewarm, the state in which our God despises. People identify not with their statements of faith but with the qualifiers to their statements of faith.
"I am a Christian but..."
"I participate in politics but..."
"I don't support the gays but..."
"I would never get an abortion myself but..."
I tire of these qualifiers. They are death made manifest in language.
"I would never get an abortion but wouldn't stop anyone else from getting one" is the most weak-kneed statement of all time. What does it mean? You'd never murder anyone, but you're happy to permit others to do so?
If you say this, you lack faith in your own beliefs.
"I hate the transgender agenda that's being pushed on kids, but I believe that it would be unconstitutional/illiberal to stop adults from making this decision."
This one is perhaps the most pernicious because it leaves the door open for transgenderism to rage in society but pretends to want to guard the children. Well, if the children grow up and think to change their gender and pursue it, have you not failed? What's the point of this belief if it doesn't stop evil from raging? This belief exists to be palatable to others.
Again, those that profess this lack faith in their own beliefs.
"Homosexuality is a sin but we should love the gays."
I've always been puzzled by this one. By even saying this, you have heavily implied that believing homosexuality is a sin is somehow at odds with loving them. Why say this? Why concede to the enemy's beliefs in a statement disguised as saying the opposite? No qualifier is needed. "Homosexuality is a sin." Nothing else to add except when someone asks a question of you regarding this belief. To say the qualifier—everything after “…but…”—is to betray your lack of faith in your own beliefs.
Christianity is the Manifestation of the love of God in the earth. Stating something is a sin presupposes love. It is inherent in the statement regardless of whether or not the person you're speaking to believes it. This qualifier betrays the guilty conscience of the believer speaking it. Why do you act guilty? Why do you act ashamed? Are you not standing on the truth of Almighty God?
The thing that has crippled the faith far more than legalism/religion is this incessant undermining of the faith, this language that must clarify and qualify biblically accurate statements. Christians using this language submit themselves to a defensive position as if they ought to be apologizing for their faith. Are you apologizing because Christianity isn’t liberal? Are you apologizing because Christianity isn’t progressive? A man must stand on his beliefs. No Christian should be defensive about the truth. You are offensive because you have submitted to the Most High God. You are confident in your meekness produced by the Gospel working through you, knowing that only God has the answers, the truth. At least…you should be.
Adding “I’m sorry if this hurts your feelings but” to a statement about Christ undermines your confession of belief in his Word. Are you truly sorry for saying the truth? Why would you be sorry for speaking the truth?
Because our culture is drenched in this language to avoid stepping on people’s toes, even I use it occasionally and accidentally after spending years contemplating this defect, this lack of faith inherent in these kinds of confessions of faith—those with haphazard qualifiers and erroneous clarification. I despise it, but it’s not easy to stop because most Christians use this awful language to talk about God. Most people in our relativistic culture use these subtle self-undermining language to skirt around the deep issues of our society.
You are NOT on the defense. You are on the offense if you are a Christian. Hell isn’t coming after you. You are coming after the manifestation of hellish darkness in the Earth. STOP APOLOGIZING FOR FOLLOWING JESUS.
Are you ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ?
If you didn't know, the human heart absolutely loves religion, which is why religion has always dominated in every age, which is why it dominates now (if you didn't know, the world has only been becoming more religious post-WW2--statistics reveal this even in so-called atheists who frequently admit to belief in the supernatural in surveys). What people hate is hypocrisy. They hate the one who does not live what he or she believes. They hate the weakness of the confession of modern Christians.
The west entered a state where the hypocrisy of the endless clarifications and constant qualifiers became the primary manifestation of Christianity. Can the Word of God be found in your befuddled mumbling apologies and clarifications and qualifying? Is strength found in such a manifestation? People are not offended by faith. They are offended by Christians who subtly admit that they don't have full faith in their own beliefs. Parents who lived for themselves who demanded that their children live for a God who they themselves had never truly served began this crisis of faith in the west. Children are perceptive. If you live for mammon your children see it. If you live for mammon and profess Christ, they observe your hypocrisy. Then, they fulfill that hypocrisy in their own lives.
I remember this clearly in the aughts.
Some famous Christian, perhaps a megachurch pastor or a worship leader, would get invited on some mainstream talk show like Ellen or Oprah, and these talk show hosts would pop the obvious question which would inevitably be, "do you support homosexuality?" (something along those lines) And suddenly this so-called champion of the faith would become so weak as to begin apologizing for their own faith. The ums and the ahs and the "Jesus loves everyone" added as qualifiers to every statement made from then on. Instead of giving an obvious answer to an obvious question that a Christian should have been prepared to answer, they would give this long, winding, and rambling circumlocution regarding the topic of homosexuality that makes sure to emphasize things like “love” and shy away from things like “sin” and “repentance”. I remember my parents commenting on these moments, shaking their head at these "leaders" in the faith shriveling up, going flaccid if I may say, at the moment they heard this question. For them, it must have seemed like they had suddenly been cornered.
Or were they?
Maybe all they had to do was confess the truth as the Apostle Paul had written to us about sexuality immorality.
9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
The answer has never been to water down the faith. The answer is to become fanatical about its testimonies, its precepts. The children are looking for authentic believers in Christ, not those who serve mammon, serve the platform, serve their own narcissism, serve their own desires, nor those who desire to be loved by the world, those that fear man. Radical submission to God is the answer to the malaise in the west. It's not to become unconvinced of your own faith.
People are not looking for love and acceptance. They already have that on every corner. Someone out there is preaching what they want to hear on every platform. It’s not hard to find someone who will accept you and claim to love you. What’s difficult to find is someone who will love you enough to rebuke you, who will call you to live in a higher way, and who will demand that you become who God called you to be. They are looking to have a faith worth dying for. They want their suffering to have transcendent meaning. Otherwise, they float from whim to whim looking for a panacea to give them pleasure to cover their pain—never quite finding something that will sustain them. It's not until they willingly forfeit their life that they find something worth living for.
Jesus is worth living for, but more importantly, He is worth dying for.
20 I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and [a]the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
25 For whoever wishes to save his [a]life will lose it; but whoever loses his [b]life for My sake will find it.
23 And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.
24 Now those who [a]belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
I was watching Derek Prince and he reminded me of something in one of his teachings that I watched. He reminded me that Rev 12:11 describes us, the body of Christ in the last days. It tells how we overcome, and it says this about us:
"...and they loved not their lives even unto death."
11 And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.
—Revelation 12:11 NASB1995, emphasis added
The fanatical worship of Christ is to live out this death-to-self in a radical manner. We are the people who love not our lives even unto death. Fellow Christian, this is who you are. God is saying these things about you. It is his will for you to live this radical obedience out in your life. Be confident in the truth of his Word and make no excuses for it. The Word of God justifies itself.
People, in this age of modernity, are in search of the true Sons of God who have a fanatical, death-to-self worship of the One True God.
When the church begins to manifest that, the lost will come.
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.