Am I ashamed of Jesus?

Apparently I am ashamed of Jesus. I did not know this was true. I pastor a church and proclaim His Name every Sunday. Throughout the week I share Jesus with those I meet via my job at the Salvation Army. I spend time counseling others and trying to point them to the Savior. Yet every week I am told that if I did not FW the latest "Christian" email spam, then I was ashamed of Him and that He would deny me before God because I had denied Him before men!

How did this happen? How did Scriptures like Mark 8:38, where Jesus had been talking about taking up our cross and following Him, get misappropriated to mean if we did not FW emails we were dishonoring God? Why is Matthew 10:33 flying around in my inbox telling me to FW long emails of nonsensical stuff to everyone on my list? Why am I being browbeaten by Luke 9:26 and told that I don't love God enough if I don't FW these emails to all my friends and the person who sent it to me?

Enough!

You can call this a rant. It's ok.

I find myself disturbed by this misuse of Scripture.

The Bible is God's Word. According to 2nd Timothy 3:16, "Every Scripture passage is inspired by God. All of them are useful for teaching, pointing out errors, correcting people, and training them for a life that has God's approval."

Now I believe email and the internet can be used as powerful tools in sharing God's Word. To teach, encourage, correct and train people in the the Word. However when we manipulate Scripture to encourage people to send cutesy emails around the world we do a major disservice to the body of Christ!

The sad part is some of these emails are really interesting but when I read a misuse of Scripture I immediately delete them. So before sending the next FW of the latest Christian Chain Letter stop and look at the Scripture you are sending. Is it applicable, appropriate and used in a way that will glorify God? If it is then by all means send it. If it only furthers the "blessings and cursing" of a chain letter with a bit of Scripture added, do everyone a favor and hit delete.