April 6, 2022 (Wednesday)
Pre-Easter Theme: What Jesus Taught Us
Theme for this week: God Loves the World Through Us
Paul wrote, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes..” Paul was not ashamed of the gospel. And what is the gospel? It is the good news that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 ESV). So Paul was not ashamed of God’s love for the world.
Paul was ashamed of the fact that he had persecuted Christians before he became one, but once he gave his life to Jesus, he suffered much for his faith. He was, however, never ashamed of knowing and loving Jesus Christ.
Peter was acquainted with the fact that some Christians may have felt shame because the Romans were calling them lawbreakers and putting them to death, but he wrote to them, “If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name” (1 Peter 4:12-16).
Christians have suffered for their faith, but they have never felt ashamed, no matter how they may have been mistreated by an unbelieving world. Paul knew what suffering for Christ was, when he wrote, ” I bear on my body the scars that show I belong to Jesus” (Galatians 6:17). But he was never ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is filled, from beginning to end, with the Love of God for a lost world.
Take Up Thy Cross and Follow Me
Alfred H. Ackley
1922
Refrain:
“Take up thy cross and follow Me,”
I hear the blessed Savior call;
How can I make a lesser sacrifice,
When Jesus gave His all?
Verses:
I walked one day along a country road,
And there a stranger journeyed too,
Bent low beneath the burden of His load:
It was a cross, a cross I knew.
Refrain
I cried, “Lord Jesus,” and He spoke my name;
I saw His hands all bruised and torn;
I stooped to kiss away the marks of shame,
The shame for me that He had borne.
Refrain
“Oh, let me bear Thy cross, dear Lord,” I cried,
And, lo, a cross for me appeared,
The one, forgotten, I had cast aside,
The one, so long, that I had feared.
Refrain
My cross I’ll carry till the crown appears–
The way I journey soon will end–
Where God Himself shall wipe away all tears,
And friend hold fellowship with friend.
Refrain