“I am not ashamed” (II Timothy 1:12).

No one enjoys being embarrassed. We do a hundred things to avoid it–take a daily bath, use deodorant, no longer wear some of the things in our closet, take care of the words we speak, admonish our children, and cut our lawns.

Shame is embarrassment on steroids. If embarrassment means to blush, shame means dying a thousand deaths while continuing to breathe.

To be ashamed is to be humiliated in front of people from whom you wanted acceptance or admiration or appreciation. You are devastated at the way people now see you; you wish to crawl into a hole.

Shame is a big issue with the Apostle Paul. Writing from his prison cell in Rome, in his final letter (or, at least, the last one we have of his epistles), he had this to say on the subject:

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“God is faithful” (I Corinthians 10:13).

1) If you do not like change, you do not want to start following Jesus.

Jesus Christ has great plans for your life, and if you hand “you” over to Him–and continue doing so every day of your life for the rest of your earthly journey–you will find that involves change, change, and more change.  We may call it growth or something spiritual like “sanctification,” but it’s all about change.

He loves you the way you are, but loves you enough not to leave you that way.

Here is how the Apostle Paul put it: “But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (II Corinthians 3:18).

That is the plan.

You don’t like change, you say?

Then, do not come after Jesus.

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“Therefore, my beloved brethren….” (I Corinthians 15:58)

Think of these as resurREACTIONS.

Every sermon, they say, should be made up of two parts, the “what” and the “so what.”

Today is Easter Sunday. Churches across the globe are reading selections from Matthew 28, Luke 24, Mark 16, John 20, and I Corinthians 15 about the Lord Jesus’ victory over death, hell, and the grave.

We’re covering the “what” of the resurrection fairly well, I’d say.

But we must not stop there.

The whole point of the Lord’s rising from the dead is what it says about the Lord Jesus, what that says to the enemy, and the difference this should make to believers.

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“The just shall live by faith.” (Habakkuk 2:4; Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11)

One day this week while traveling down the interstate through the open country, I began listing the things we Christians do by faith. The list became lengthy in a hurry.

To do anything by faith means we have an invisible authority for this thing we do. An outsider, not understanding or valuing the invisible, would consider us presumptuous or foolish or deluded, but as followers of Jesus Christ and believers in His Word, we calmly do these things and consider doing them completely reasonable.

Acting by faith for one man meant going out not knowing where he was headed but trusting the Invisible Authority to let him know when he had arrived, for another building a massive boat on dry land far removed from water, and for a third renouncing the luxury of the palace to throw his lot in with a group of slaves.

Faith people have been known to do some strange things.

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