This Is NOT a Secret!

This is Part 4 in a series on "Secrets". I encourage you to read Parts 1-3 before reading this post. Hope you'll join in the conversation!

We have all these secrets - all these issues crammed into the closet that we don't talk about - growing mold and rot and bitterness down in the crevices of our heart and soul. They must be stopped! We have to expose them, live in the light of the TRUTH, and claim the victory that is already ours in Christ. Whether it's addiction, a hidden habit, resentment toward someone, unreasonable expectations you placed on another person, wounds brought on by someone else's carelessness, fear of the unknown - whatever the secret may be...you have 2 options: expose it, defeat it, and grow from it (OR) ignore it, keep pretending, and prepare yourself for the eventual moment when it decides for itself to crawl out into the light for everyone to see. It's your choice. 

Up to this point though, all of these secrets I've been alluding to have been things that (for most of us) we aren't readily going to take out an ad in the paper to inform the rest of the world about. Most of them would be considered "negative". They're habits or mistakes or wounds or assumptions. But what about the "positive"? What about secrets - or maybe I should say, a SECRET - that has no business ever being kept in the dark? Is there something we're not talking about that EVERYONE needs to know? And when I say "EVERYONE needs to know...", I'm talking about every person that lives, eats, sleeps, and breathes in the same world we do. Here's the question: Is your faith a SECRET? Do you speak the name of Jesus? And I'm not asking if some of your coworkers or neighbors or friends know that you "go to church". I stood in the garage the other day for awhile. I didn't turn into a car. I'm asking you - and myself - to examine if our faith is made out of the same thing the Apostle Paul's faith was made of - faith and belief and love and trust that compelled him to say, "I am NOT ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes." (Romans 1:16) [Paraphrase: I am NOT ashamed of Jesus. He saved me! I'm ready to tell the world!] And then a little later in his letter to the Romans (10:14-15) Paul asks us "...how can they call on Him to save them unless they believe in Him? And how can they believe in Him if they have never heard about Him? And how can they hear about Him unless someone tells them?" If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, that someone is YOU! That someone is ME!

Are we telling them? Are we speaking His name?

Or are we - for some lazy, apathetic, unGodly reason - keeping this a SECRET?

What are we waiting for? This is more than an antidote for a disease. This is life and death! This is eternally life-changing information! Who on earth would keep that a SECRET?

Why do we keep this to ourselves?

Are you looking for an opportunity to share the Gospel?

Speak the name of Jesus. He is still changing lives!

And this is NOT a SECRET!