“I tell you, whoever publicly acknowledges me before others, the Son of Man will also acknowledge before the angels of God.”
Luke 12:8 NIV
What if Jesus acts as though He doesn’t recognize you when you stand before God? “Wait, Jesus! I accepted You when I was a kid—don’t You remember?” The thought is terrifying.
But have there been times when someone needed to hear the good news about Jesus, and we kept quiet? I have, and the memory hurts. For anyone like me, we may feel embarrassed when we talk about the Lord—we wonder if people will think we’re weird. Maybe we feel inadequate. What if someone asks us to show them in the Bible what we claim as truth and we can’t remember the verses? So, we don’t acknowledge knowing Him.
We can identify with Peter when he denied he knew Jesus. Imagine how miserable he felt after that. The wonderful assurance is that Jesus forgives us and doesn’t hold those moments against us. Like He did for Peter, He will give us more opportunities. Jesus knows we will fail sometimes, but those mistakes can make us stronger in the future because we never want to be that wretched again.
I know better than to think I could never deny Jesus again. But when the Holy Spirit prompts me to be bold, I want to trust Him to give me the perfect words to share the good news.
Dear Lord, help me always be ready to speak up for You, regardless of what others think. I never want to deny knowing You. Amen.
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Today’s reading was adapted from Daily Wisdom for Women: 2017 Devotional Collection with permission from Barbour Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Reading was written by Ardythe Kolb.