God Gives You Opportunities: Are you ashamed or bold for Him?

God Gives You Opportunities: Are you ashamed or bold for Him?          Kelly Durant

Mark 8:36-38 

36 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? 37 Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

2. You have heard it said that some pop artists have told the story how that they sold their souls to the devil in exchange for riches, fame, and pleasure? Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll! Sadly, it does seem true, that some people do get rewarded for their evil behavior. They even get praise revealing their worship of Satan and His perverted agendas!? How sad to only get 1 year, or a few more, of fame and then get eternal hell as a punishment! Satan, and the 33% of the fallen angels along with any human who worships him or opposes God’s commands will have hell to pay for rebelling against our good and loving God who created you and me.

The contrary is this, if you give your life totally to God and let Him remake you into a useful vessel, He will guide you, protect you, and bless you and grant you eternity with Him in heaven. Here on earth there is a lot of unpleasant work to be done with unpleasant people and persecution will come but our rewards are in heaven, not here. You show how much you believe this by how much you live it!

Either way, in this life, as Bob Dylan sang it, ‘you got to serve somebody, it may be the devil, or it may be God’. But the results from which one you serve are vastly different! God’s way is life, love, and happiness! The devil’s way is death, destruction, and the reaping of punishments for crimes against humanity and against the holy commands of our loving merciful God. 

3. I must confess, God has been good to me! I have had to go through many dangers, toils, and snares, especially in So. America, but now as I am older, I can look back and see how I am blessed! How can you or me always be thankful to God for what we have? By just looking at our humble past, and our parents poor humble past!

Why am I starting off a message with this? Because for God to do anything good with you He must first have your thankfulness, your devotion, your absolute love, your heart, your ‘everything’! For God to give all to you, you must give your all to God! You must be bold and unashamed of Jesus for Him to not be ashamed of you! Satan’s crowd always mocks us, but Jesus will return as the victor very soon!

How many of you here are young? Under 30? Under 20? Your life is just getting started but you are choosing a road right now that will set you up for either God’s blessings and eternal rewards, or you are setting yourself up for your own ruin! 

4. I will confess when I was young I did not have the privilege of talking direct to a Captain or pastor, or a wise person to guide me. I wish I had had that! I was weak and the influence of the world got me back then. I have tried to talk to some of our youth, but many youth will not discuss any topic with you or me. Sad, right?

We need each other but technology has damaged our world and it is as if some people today live in a fantasy world occupied with their phones not realizing their phones are not God, they do not supply their physical needs. And for spiritual needs, you can read the Bible or hear a sermon from the web but 90% of what is promoted tends to debauchery, fake news, deception, and corruption. 

Our technology fuels sinful entertainment and wrongful information from anti-Christian evil people! Don’t get suckered in, God will have no other idols before Him! If what you only spend time with is not of God, then God is not happy with you and how can you expect God to answer your prayers if He is not first in your life?  Remember God wants your love from your heart, mind, and soul!

5. If you are young, or old, you had better wake up fast and realize you should be seeking God and looking for guidance from those that live Godly, holy, and intelligently. You could make loads of money and gain position in the world but what compares to losing your soul?! Does Jesus really rule your soul and life?

Promise God today you will read the Proverbs! Listen to the conclusion of Proverbs 1: 32 For the turning away of the simple will slay them, And the complacency of fools will destroy them; 33 But whoever listens to me (God’s spirit of wisdom) will dwell safely, And will be secure, without fear of evil.”

I recall I was just an ordinary teen absorbed in the culture of the world’s music back in the 60s and 70s, and the culture back then with the ‘hippie’ free love and drugs environment caused me to lose my way for a few years until I was 21. God used my mistakes for His glory, because I returned to Him, but I regret the fact that I allowed the world, which is under Satan’s control, to shape my thoughts and actions to the point I almost remained deceived and almost died as well! 

6. I sinned against God, but I did confess it and He heard me and led me to meet people doing mission work. By a miracle Jesus saved me when I was on the path to self-destruction, offending Him and those around me. God stepped in after I started seeking Him with purity, rejecting the politics, peer pressure, and false religious teachings of the world.  Without God first, these things destroy you!

Here is the reality factor, life goes on but how well you will live depends on how much of God’s word you obey. I memorized God’s word when I was young as I wanted it deep in my heart so it would transform me! What can you quote?

Over the years we have seen some young people chose God’s path, they spent time with us and others, in the Corps, learning to obey through Bible classes, and these did not mess up their lives with wrong sexual relationships that took them away from God. Several ended up marrying wonderful people! As a matter of fact, the Arroqui family and a few dozen others we cared for went on to serve the Lord in the Salvation Army here in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, or elsewhere!

7. Then there are the unsuccesful ones, the ones that never wanted to talk with us about their lives and choices, so counseling, God, and prayer did not guide them.  These are ones that seemed to just want to hang with friends but did not care about God’s Word, mission, or the work needed to be done for Jesus. 

My wife and I have seen several young rebellious people end up in jail, pregnant with no father, or just condemned to slave away from one bad job to another with no happiness, family, or purpose. And they had their chance to get close to God but refused due to being ashamed of being a Christian, so that they ended up as your common person of the world who is carnally driven, frustrated, and angry.

It makes me mad, sad, and disturbed to see that many young people in our Salvation Army Corps (along with those in other churches) are offered many great opportunities to learn, progress, and improve their selves yet they treat God’s  opportunities as of little value. The road your soul takes in life really matters!

8. Unthankfulness, and the allowing of the values of the world to override the values of God’s love and goodness in one’s life has consequences! Usually these consequences are bitterness, anger, and the illusion that your failures and frustrations are the fault of others in your family or government when they are not. They are simply the bad results of you not being obedient to God when you knew to be! They are the consequences of being ashamed of Jesus & your faith!

Look at the masses of people today that protest in crowds, demanding change but what change? Is it for a change to repent and get back to God and Jesus so we can live under the peace, unity, and love God freely gives? No! Is it to demand we repent as the mega-city of Nineveh did to avoid God’s judgments and destructions? NO! It almost always is a protest directed at a person or system they accuse of being evil because they want attention distracted away from their own evil greedy desire for power. What a worthless shallow cause compared to serving our loving, healing, eternal Jesus! 

I am not ashamed to stand up for Jesus because the alternative is to follow these evil, violent, political crowds with vulgar mouths?! People who shout ‘shame on you’ need to wake up and see they have ‘shame’ on their own selves! Romans 3:23 declares no one is righteous! If you want others to listen to you, you must speak with God’s righteous authority and values, not with boring slogans and chants while living in debauchery with your life a mess. People see through it all and easily see who are hypocrites, troublemakers, and ungodly fools!

9. So here is a problem in the church today, (and even in our Corps?), the youth and some adults are ashamed to be seen by their peers as a Christian proclaiming Christian standards in their schools and workplace! They say little or nothing to convince their friends about Jesus or of God’s ways to save a soul for Jesus. They are weak in the Word, weak in being close to Godly leaders/pastors/Corps Officers, and over time they may be letting the world’s values kill their faith.

But what did Jesus say? “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

I cannot imagine the horror of panic that one would feel knowing that Jesus was displeased and ashamed of you for not standing up for Him! Jesus determines who goes into rewards and rest for a life well spent for Him, and who gets disqualified.  Matthew 10:28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

If you have been embarrassed to stand firm for Jesus over stupid critical words from friends or family, you had better pray right now to get conviction! You really need the Holy Spirit in you burning out all those destructive values of the world. Jesus’ warning is tough, you will be cast aside to eternally dwell with the hypocrites, liars, and evil condemned souls if not standing up for Him.

You cannot say, I never knew I had to stand up for Jesus because you just heard it today from Mark 8:36-38. I lost nearly all my college friends over telling them I was going to do mission work for Jesus! To lose ungodly friends is no loss! God has millions of followers who love Him and you can share heaven with them forever but you must reject what Satan and the world offers you! Be bold for Jesus! Come and pray for more power, conviction, and Holy Spirit from God!