16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "The just shall live by faith."
We are called to proclaim the reality of the presence of Christ - He is the One who is mighty to save, who has made known and released His presence in our lives, who has loved us and brought us into fellowship with Himself. And, we are called to make Him known through the words of our mouths and the demonstration through our lives.
In Acts 17, we see that Paul testifies to the reality of Christ:
Beginning in verse 22, he declares, "Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; 23 for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you... 26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, 'For we are also His offspring.'
The Freedom from Religion Foundation is continuing its assault on our deeply held Judeo-Christian values - the latest Alabama instance involved the city of Sylvania, which added a Scriptural quote, Ephesians 4:5, which says, "One Lord, one faith, one baptism" to the signs that mark the entrance to its town limits. After receiving a letter from the FFRF and because the city doesn't have the funding to defend a lawsuit, the verse has been painted over...talk about bullying!
Well, you would think the FFRF is like the ACLU or Americans United for the Separation of Church and State in providing for what they see is a "neutrality" toward religion. But, I think a recent incident from Spring Hill, Tennessee shows that their agenda is a bit more, shall we say, aggressive.
At Summit High School, they have a "Fictional Character Day", and one sophomore, Jeff Shott decided he would dress up as Jesus - well, that's a problem...there are few that doubt the historical existence of Jesus; plenty who don't acknowledge Him as God, but as a historical figure, the evidence is overwhelming - so already, Jeff has violated the rules of the day. And, according to the Foundation, Shott was approached by the principal, assistant principal, and a
school resource officer about his costume, and he was warned that it could create a distraction. The student then contacted the FFRF, who sent a letter to Director of Schools Mike Looney calling the costuming
incident a violation of the student's constitutional rights protected
under the First Amendment. Looney backed the principal, and said, according to USA Today, "We're not trying to tell him what to believe or not believe. What we are saying is he's not allowed to create a distraction." Even the President and CEO of the First Amendment Center in Nashville said that the school behaved properly.
The application for us is that there are a few people that do regard Jesus as a fictional character, but there are many more that treat Him like one - behaving as if there is no God. If we truly believe that Jesus is Lord, then our lives will demonstrate to the world His glory and His character. So, the question for us is whether or not our behavior is testifying to the world that we believe in the reality of the living God. The apostle Paul in Romans 1 said that he was not ashamed of the gospel - if we are living in an unashamed manner, then our lives will reflect the reality of God's presence.
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