Are you in your mid-twenties, late twenties, early thirties? The great temptation comes to cast away your earlier devotion and your earlier application to the things of God and dedication. Things are getting busier now, life is getting fuller, responsibilities are mounting, promotion means more commitment to the job. That may well be right: you have got to earn your living, you have got to please the Lord and be diligent. But there are great temptations to leave off attendance, to leave off Christian service, to be more interested in career, work, home, family, to focus all your efforts on reaching an earthly goal which skews your priorities entirely. Do not throw away your boldness, your readiness to put Christ first, your readiness to work out proper priorities. Do not throw it away because this is the thing in your life for which you will be rewarded: your commitment to Christ. This will bring you the blessing; it is a huge word – boldness. What do you need to be bold in? Well the apportioning of your time and your commitment, what you do for him, and your readiness to suffer for him.
Do not let any of us become secret disciples. That secrecy is born out of shame, for we wish to hide from the attention of men our allegiance to Jesus Christ. In the presence of fallen, ignorant, and rebellious human beings we dare not maintain our witness for fear of their scorn. We do not see him who is invisible by faith, whose eye is always on us and who allows us to be tested. Visible man becomes more significant to us than the invisible God. The weak mind makes a calculation and counts the scorn that comes from those around him as more to be feared than the disapproval of the holy One of Israel. We must fight this tendency of our hearts by praying for boldness, by thinking often of what Christ’s appearing will mean, and by directing our love to God so that we habitually live to please him. We remind ourselves of how the appearing of our Lord will, in a moment, even turn upside down the assessment that men and women make of their own conduct. Those who have all their lives sorned the Lord and his people, will instantly condemn themselves and hide their faces from his presence in terror and shame.