NOT ASHAMED! Pt. 3

“My people shall never be ashamed.
And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel,
and that I am the Lord your God and none else:
and my people shall never be ashamed”
(Joel 2:26-27).

 

A few last thoughts about not being ashamed.

 

We must not be ashamed of trusting the Lord

 

What can you do when you cannot see any solution to your problem, you cannot see any way out and the situation looks impossible? There’s only one thing to do and that’s trust the Lord. But it’s not the only thing to do; it’s the best thing to do. When you trust the Lord, you will never be ashamed, for God is faithful. He cannot go against His promises and it is impossible for God to lie!

 

I will have to admit that God often keeps you waiting. And He often answers differently than what you expect. You wonder why you don’t get your answer immediately. But God is doing more than bringing deliverance. He is working in our hearts at the same time. He is teaching us patience and how to trust Him more and more, even when we cannot see any light in the tunnel.

 

David confessed in Psalm 25:2-3, 20, “O my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me. Yea let none that wait on thee be ashamed… O keep my soul, and deliver me: let me not be ashamed; for I put my trust in thee.” (Psalm 31:1, 17; 69:6).

 

David also states in Psalm 34:5, “They looked unto him, and were lightened: and their faces were not ashamed.”

 

God promises in Isaiah 49:23, “They shall not be ashamed that wait for Me.”

 

Trust Him when dark days assail thee,
Trust Him when thy faith is small,
Trust Him when to simply trust Him
Is the hardest thing of all!

 

We must not be ashamed of hope

 

The word “hope” means to be expectant, to believe that God is going to do something good. If we do not hope, we do not understand who God is, for He is a good God and everything He does is good.

 

Romans 5:3-5 says, “We glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed.” What teaches us to have hope? Tribulations! It is in our hardships that we experience God working everything out for good. Each experience gives us more hope in God so that we can eventually be full of hope, knowing that we will not be ashamed, even when people think we are crazy for trusting God (Romans 9:33; 10:11; 15:13; Philippians 1:20). When Abraham believed God’s promise to receive a son in his old age, Romans 4:18 tell us that, “Who against hope, believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be..”

 

We must not be ashamed of suffering for Christ

 

Paul confessed in 2 Timothy 1:12, “For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”

 

1 Peter 4:16 says, “If any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf.”

 

We must not be ashamed of the saints who are suffering for Christ

 

2 Timothy 1:8 says, “Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, not of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God.”

 

2 Timothy 1:16, “Onesiphorus… was not ashamed of my chain… but sought me out very diligently, and found me.”

 

We must not be ashamed of the blood of Christ

 

We have no salvation except through the blood of Christ. We have no access to the promises of God except through the blood of Christ. We cannot overcome the enemy apart from the blood of Christ. Let’s never be ashamed of the precious, pure, powerful blood of Jesus that was poured out on the cross for our sins.

 

Revelation 12:11 says, “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death.”

 

We need never be ashamed in hard times

 

Psalm 37:18-19 says, “The Lord knoweth the days of the upright: and their inheritance shall be forever. They shall not be ashamed in the evil time: and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied.”

 

What a wonderful promise. We do not know what lies ahead in the coming days, but we have this promise that if we walk uprightly (the word is tamim meaning “free from blemishes and spots, faultless, blameless) that we will never have to be ashamed.

 

The NLT translates it, “They will survive through hard times, even in famine they will have more than enough.”

 

And The Message Bible gets to the “nitty gritty”--“In hard times, they’ll hold their heads high; when the shelves are bare, they’ll be full.”

 

Love from NANCY CAMPBELL
www.aboverubies.org

 

 

PRAYER:

 

I thank you, Father that when I trust you I will never be ashamed. When I lean on my own strength, it will not hold me; but you are my Rock on which I can lean all my weight. Amen.”

 

AFFIRMATION:

 

Ashamed of thee, of that blest Name
Which speaks of mercy full and free?
Nay, Lord, I would my only shame
Might be to be ashamed of thee.