Kingdom Disciples With Tony EvansSample

The Bold Confession 

If you were accused of being a Christian on your job or in your community, would there be enough evidence to convict you? Or would you be found innocent? 

Jesus made a clear connection between His followers’ public acknowledgment and confession of Him before people and His confession of us before the Father. Jesus didn’t say if you confess His Father before people, He would confess you before Him. Confessing that you believe in God wasn’t His goal. After all, it’s easy to say you believe in God. People pour so many variant definitions into the word God that just saying the name doesn’t always convey a degree of commitment. 

However, when you publicly confess Jesus Christ, everyone knows whom you’re talking about. The name Jesus can’t be confused or watered down. 

Publicly confessing Jesus can be compared to a married person who wears a wedding ring. That wedding ring is on the ring finger to make a public declaration of a legal, binding relationship with someone else. You can be married and choose not to wear your ring so that no one will know you’re married, but I doubt that your spouse will condone that choice. 

A lot of Christians today who’ve married into the family of God as the bride of Jesus Christ don’t want to wear His ring. They don’t want other people to know they’re bound to Jesus in a covenant relationship. When it’s not convenient to be associated with Jesus, they simply say, like Peter, “I don’t know the man.” Jesus made it clear that because of this choice, when they call on Him and He’s acting as the mediator between them and God the Father, He will deny that He knows them. 

Your private commitment to Jesus and your public confession of Him affect the level of His power and authority that you experience in your life. Few people realize the connection between committing to and confessing Jesus and overcoming life’s challenges. But when you make that connection and live it out, you’re on your way to fully realizing all you were created to be and do as a kingdom disciple.