Avoiding the Shame

In order to avoid feeling shame and regret, we replace our worship of the One True God with the worship of idols, or things that replace God in our lives.  These material things compete with our God for our attention, and we seem to fall prey to the allure of these idols because the world encourages this devotion and allegiance to material things.  What makes this worse is that those of us who worship our material possessions over our worship of God know better.  We often will practice this while having the knowledge we should be acting different.  It’s one thing to unknowingly give devotion and desire to those things that remove us or take away from our God, but to do this with the knowledge that it’s wrong is far worse.     

“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. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith.’

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.  Romans 1:16-19(NASB)

There are times when we are ashamed of the gospel.  This shame is created when we are considered “strange” or an “outsider” by a world that relies on greed and envy as fuel for the economy.  The economy has become the driving force behind everything we do.  It tells us what we have to do to obtain the things we want.  We experience the shame when our neighbors are able to have or possess these things and we cannot.  This begins the evil process of convincing us we are less deserving, or lazy because we can’t find the job it would take for us to earn what we need in order to have what they have.  And this vicious cycle continues until we are consumed with this as opposed to paying any attention to our God.  It becomes shameful to have our attention taken up by something we can’t see or touch.  

The world convinces us to move away from our God so that we can have what everyone has, be what everyone wants us to be and act in a manner that pleases the world so that the world can reward us with more stuff.  All the while, our Bibles are collecting dust on the shelf.   While we are struggling to work more, have more and be more, we are reducing our God to nothing more than the obligatory hour on Sunday.  When we have the opportunity to share the Gospel, we shy away because there is no economic return on this investment, or we feel we don’t have the time, or worse, we are ashamed to devote our precious time to worshipping something we can’t pull out of our pocket.  We are guided in almost every decision we make by the size of our bank account, and not the size of our faith.  This is not good management of the things we have been given by a God who loves us, and wants our attention.

“And although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”  Romans 1:32(NASB)

My suggestion would be to avoid the shame of being ashamed.  It may just save your life. 

“in the world, not of the world”