What’s Your Name?

  Ulysses Simpson Grant became known as unconditional surrender Grant for his refusal to accept any other terms of surrender. The nickname worked so well since it fit right in with his initials of U.S.  The only problem those were not his initials, at least not the one he was born with.

  Grant was actually born Hiram Ulysses but when he applied for acceptance into West Point the congressman who supported the boy’s application submitted erroneously his name as Ulysses Simpson (his mother Hannah’s maiden name) Grant.  When Grant arrived he tried to correct the error, but he soon learned a humbling fact of a soldier; when the army calls you by a name it becomes your name whether it really is or not.

  As Christians, I think we face a similar dilemma. The name Christian is one that should have a certain distinction, a name that makes us of Christ.  Yet over the years, that name has been hijacked by those of the world.  It’s been warped into lots of different terms; a varied group of people with loosely related beliefs, a political agenda or set of dogmas. You might see people saying that a certain opinion or ideology is unchristian, even when the items being discussed has no real connection to true Biblical Christianity. You hear a claim that no Christian can support <fill in the blank>, when the blank is has no Biblical connection.  For some Christian can mean anything from judgmental, to social backward, to religious, to leaning to one side of the political spectrum.

  So what makes us a Christian? Is it the world’s definition or Christ’s?

  Like Grant I don’t know if we ever can take back the name but there is one thing we can do is life our lives in a way to negates the monikers people lay on it

Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler; but if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name.

1^st Peter 4:15-16

True Christians need to exemplify Christ. They should follow his teaching, have him at the head of his church, live by the principles he espoused. Rather than try to drag Christ into our agenda, we should see Him as the one that makes our agenda.

  Don’t let the world tell you what it means to be a Christian, let Jesus the Christ!