"I admit that I worship the God of our fathers as a follower of the Way, which they call a sect." (Acts 24:14)
It is easy enough when we are in meetings of Christians—to be known as one of them. But Christ wants us to confess Him just as distinctly when we are among His enemies. If anyone sneers at us as Christians, we should not blush and hang our head, and stammer out an apology, or, far worse, a denial.
We should be ready, without bravado, modestly and humbly—yet boldly, to admit that we are Christians, and to do it in such a way as to show that we rejoice in our relation to Christ, and in confessing it.
Miss Havergal tells of going into a boarding-school as a pupil just after she had united with the church. She was startled to find that in a school family of a hundred, that she was the only Christian.
Her first feeling was that she could not avow her love for Christ, with all that company of worldly girls around her. But her second thought was that she could not but avow it, since she was the only one Christ had there to represent Him. This thought was most strengthening, and from that hour she quietly took her place as a friend of Christ.
It ought to help us, whenever we stand amid enemies of Christ, to remember that He has put us there to represent Him, and that if we are ashamed or afraid—we shall be sadly failing and disappointing Him.
J.M.