Is there anything that you are ashamed of? Apparently, my oldest daughter could answer that question emphatically. I was parked with our family minivan outside of a dance studio waiting for my youngest daughter. The other two kids were waiting with me. Suddenly, the 12-year-old unbuckled her seat belt and started scurrying around picking up empty snack wrappers, fast-food bags, and random garbage. I asked, “What are you doing?” She very sternly replied, “Mom, I am not ashamed of the gospel, but I am ashamed of this van!” 

I’m not sure that the apostle Paul, as he addressed the Gentile believers in Rome, could have imagined his words being used in such a sentence. He couldn’t even have imagined a motorized vehicle like a van! He probably did pray that his unabashed love for the good news of Jesus Christ would live on in believers around the world. When Paul stated in Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes,” he explained why proclaiming Jesus’ message was his life’s work. And our life’s work.

It was an unexpected gift to have my daughter clean up our messy van that day, but the bigger gift was hearing her proclamation of confidence in the gospel message. Let us all proclaim with childlike boldness the truth of God’s Word. No fear and no shame!