I must live so as never to be “ashamed before him” (1 John 2:28, KJV). Certainly this refers to His second coming and our assembling before Him. But it also refers to the kind of life we should live before He comes.
To be ashamed before Him means I have forced Him to view my sin. Paul makes this clear: “Shall I … take the members of Christ to make them members of a prostitute?” (1 Corinthians 6:15, Berkeley). A preacher’s son trampled his father’s marigolds, but his father caught him in the act. The boy cried, “Don’t look at me!” He was ashamed because his father was forced to see his disobedience.
Shame is the realization of a contrast. The greater the contrast, the greater the sense of shame. If I have a sense of discomfort in the presence of the Lord, it is always because of some sin. “Dead” people have no such discomfort; but spiritually alive people can become acutely pained by the presence of even the smallest sin.
To be ashamed before Him, therefore, is a mark of spiritual life, even as the pin pricking of the doctor hurts because the patient is alive. To be ashamed before Him means that Christ is really with me, but something has happened in our relationship. I must try, by His help, to live in an unclouded relationship with Him so that I will never feel shame. It is the life that never has to cry out to Him, “Don’t look at me,” the life in which God and His disciple walk together because they are perfectly “agreed” (Amos 3:3, KJV).
“Against Thee, Thee only, I have sinned, and done what is evil in Thy sight, so that Thou art justified when Thou dost speak, and blameless when Thou dost judge” (Psalm 51:4).
Daily with the King 