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By Dean Kelly

Minister, Highland Home Church of Christ

Last week we noted that God promised a new name for His people once the Gentiles were accepted (Isaiah 62:2). We saw that the disciples were called Christians after the Gentiles were accepted into the church (Acts 11:26). We saw that Paul was trying to get King Agrippa to become a Christian (Acts 26:28). We also saw that we should glorify God if we suffer as a Christian (1 Peter 4:16).

Being a Christian means that your heart and soul are focused on Christ. Being a Christian is the guiding principle of all that Christians do. Everything they say, everything they do – all is informed and guided by their relationship to Jesus. Everything they teach and practice religiously is based on what Jesus teaches them through the apostles and other inspired Bible writers.

We can wear the new name given by God because we have become “new creatures” (2 Corinthians 5:17). We have put off the old man and put on a new man (Ephesians 4:22-24).

A Gospel preacher named Marshal Keeble told a story about a man who abused his wife so badly that she went back to her parents’ home. That man heard Brother Keeble preach the gospel. He believed it and was baptized into Christ (Romans 6:3). He went to his wife’s parents’ home and his father-in-law said he could not see his wife because he beat her. The man said, “I never beat her – that was a different man. Now I am a Christian, I am a new man, a different man. I will never beat or misuse her!”

Keeble said that this man understood what it meant to be a new man – a Christian.

Are you a Christian? Does your heart center on “Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2)? If so, you can proudly wear that new name: Christian.