My wife and I didn't do Christmas presents this year. It wasn't because we were sticking it to the American consumeristic holiday but rather we had enough going on with a baby due. We figured it would be less stressful, less to worry about, and let's face it, we both had procrastinated. We woke up for Christmas and opened nothing but the refrigerator. Thank God for parents though, my mom and dad blessed me with a gift card! So, a few days later I had the consumeristic itch and I wanted to scratch it.

Wireless bluetooth speaker. That's what's up.

So I found myself at Best Buy. As I entered, I asked the clerk kindly greeting me where I could find them, and he directed me to the area where there's about a billion different speakers to choose from. So how do you choose which speaker you want? You gotta link your phone to it and listen to it bump!

I start linking up my phone and playing music. Of course, you need to play it pretty loud to get an idea of the quality of the speakers...but what music should I play? I decide to go with my favorite Christian rapper Timothy Brindle.

As the music starts, Timothy goes rapping in the grimy elegance of an old school underground hip hop rapper infused with Christian doctrine:

"The beauty of Your deep compassion
for needy cats who are steeped in mad sin
but because of Jesus' bleeding gasping
now before God, my sin's completely absent!
'Cause on the Cross, it was like my hell
so now my righteousness is Christ Himself!
because of the Blood Spill
His mountain of Grace done smothered my dung hill!"

And then what happened next is what bothers me a lot...I got embarrassed and turned the music down all quiet. I thought to myself, people are gonna think I'm weird if I'm playing music that talks about Jesus, God, the Cross, hell, sin, righteousness, I don't want people to think I'm weird!! I don't want any weird looks. I don't want anyone to think I'm some fanatical Christian. I don't want people to think I'm some Bible freak.

When it comes down to it what I felt inside in that moment of weakness was... I don't want anyone to know I'm a Christian. I absolutely hate the fact that I felt that way in that moment. The truth was my boy Tim Brindle was preaching the gospel and I was ashamed of it. I'm ashamed that I was ashamed of the gospel. Especially, when Jesus says in Luke 9:26, "For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels."

I'm so thankful that because of Jesus' blood spill, his mountain of grace done smothered my dung hill!

I want 2014 to be a year of being unashamed of the gospel! After all, it's the power of God for the salvation for all who believe! (Romans 1:16)

What do you want 2014 to be a year of?

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/22077805@N07/11469585606/">Gerg1967</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/">cc</a>

How I denied my Lord at Best Buy