Have you ever been ashamed of anything in your life? Maybe you did something you were not proud of. Maybe you embarrassed yourself or others. If we are being honest, then we have probably all been ashamed of someone or something at some point in our lives! Some of us may even be ashamed on a daily basis!
The word ashamed means the opposite of proud. It means to feel shame, guilt, or disgrace. I don’t know about you, but I spent a lot of my childhood trying to make my family proud of them. I did not want them to be disgraced. I did everything possible and it usually worked. However, there were times in my life when I brought shame to them as well by my actions or words. Paul may have spent a lot of his later life feeling ashamed by his actions and words toward Christians. When he came to know Christ, he was not about to be ashamed of the One who had saved him. He says in Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.”
When God is first in your life, it will be rare that you will be ashamed of him. We typically aren’t ashamed of the ones we really love. However, if He is further down the list, you will find yourself being ashamed of Him often. Ask yourself what happens when someone mentions God. How do you react?