A friend once asked me if it were acceptable to publicly deny Christ while privately, secretly remaining faithful. I had only Scripture as an answer: "Whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven." and "Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."

Are you willing to lose your job, your home, and all your belongings just because you choose to tell others about Christ? Are you prepared to die to avoid a simple, easy lie like denying Christ? Are you prepared to see your loved ones brutally tortured and murdered in front of you, just so you can keep your precious ethics? You'd better be! The price for failure may very well be eternal damnation.

With only occasional exceptions, such extreme consequences for being the Lord's disciple are not yet here in our culture, but they're coming. Will you be ready? I suggest you come to grips with such possibilities now, because you never know when you might be the next exception. If you find yourself unprepared to accept the worst, worldly consequences for discipleship, then perhaps you're not ready to be His disciple yet. (Watering down this point is what leads to inoculation against Christ.)