Deny

     "But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father
      who is in heaven." (Matthew 10:33)

Deny? Me! Never!!! But do we? Do we deny Who Jesus is and what He did? Perhaps not overtly but subtly, often mis-using the scripture spoken by Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:22 (so that he would be able to convince all men) as our rationale? The result is that we present a diluted, watered down person of Jesus and thus a watered down Christian experience.

   Equivocate, Webster: "to use unclear language especially to deceive or mislead someone; to avoid committing oneself in what one says."  And before you (I) say that you are not attempting to deceive or mislead.. aren't we? You can never lead someone to the Lord without fully and completely sharing Who He is. And I believe that one of the biggest errors we make is to mislead. We really want the person we are talking with to become a Christian so we attempt to make Jesus as palatable as possible? No? I hope not.

   I've heard it mentioned more than once that if we present the Lord and have expectations for the person we are sharing Jesus with, that they will feel they need to change. Well... duh. Definitely He accepts all of us 'right where we are' but He certainly doesn't want us to remain in that state. Accepting His Lordship has to mean more than a continuation of the same o, same o? Surely you aren't the same today as you were when you first accepted the Lord.? 

   If you feel the Lord will ask you to give up (fill in the blank) then that is a fairly good sign that it is something you should give up. Did you accept Jesus and immediately try to 'equivocate' this by exerting 'your rights'? Typically 'your rights' are defined as you wanting to do what you want to do whenever you want to. but why? If you trusted Jesus to save you, won't He lead you safely?

   Remember the God's words to Joshua - Be Strong and Unafraid. In the first place, we are not alone in our action of bringing someone to the Lord. In one place Jesus talks about some who plant, some who water, and some who harvest. We don't always know what 'role' we play in another's life in their search for meaning. But we do know Who is in the entire process.