Reputation Can Be Everything

I was watching a brand new show on the Discovery Channel last night called "Swords - Life On The Line". It's kinda like Deadliest Catch, but instead of crab fishing in the Bering Sea these folks are fishing for swordfish off the Outer Banks.

In this particular episode there was a captain that hadn't been out during the season in ten years, but her legend was such that she easily filled out her crew and got to work on the fishing grounds. Other boats were giving her a wide berth and allowing her to fish the places that she used to, all because of who she was.

However, there was also a younger captain from the south who had come up to fish the Banks with his crew. He was a very aggressive bully of a captain down where he was from, and the other captains on the Banks had heard of his actions back home. They were not willing to give up some of their fishing area, and were very wary of giving him information and sharing any supplies.

Isn't it interesting? Two captains doing the same thing, and yet with completely different reputations and responses from other people.

Now, the southern captain was very respectful of other boats' fishing areas and did was very cordial and respectful when speaking to them. All to no avail, however, as the other captains simply could not believe that his niceties were genuine due to what they already knew about him. Is it fair? Not necessarily, but it is human nature to distrust what seems to be out of the ordinary.

Remember Saul? Acts 8 introduces him to us as a man on the hunt for people who follow "The Way", otherwise known as Christ-followers. In Acts 9, he is running wild from town to town in search of people that he might arrest and bring back to Jerusalem for imprisonment or death for their belief in the Lord Jesus Christ until he literally has a "come to Jesus meeting" and changes his ways.

What do you think his reputation was like? I can't imagine that he was very popular with the Jews or Gentiles that believed in Christ.

Once his experience there on the road to Damascus happened and Ananias was used by God to restore his sight, Saul had become a fully changed man. No longer interested in persecuting Christ-followers for their faith, he began to preach and proclaim the story of Christ to anyone who would listen. The problem here was that he had spent so much time building the reputation of a persecutor of Christians, there were not very many who were interested in what he was saying as much as they were interested in finding a way to dispatch him to the happy hunting grounds!

Several times his life was in danger and those who did believe him had to sneak him out of those potentially fatal situations. Even the disciples where wary of meeting with him for fear of being arrested! Saul's reputation was going to take a very long time to reverse itself.

The same thing happens in our lives today. Our reputations precede us wherever we go, and they can either smoothly pave or roughly tear up the road to where we are going. When we become followers of Christ, there are parts of our reputation that we have to overcome in order to be accepted as such.

Let me make this clear: You DO NOT NEED TO FIX THEM TO COME TO CHRIST!!! He accepts us as we are, and we don't have to "clean up" in order to become a follower. However, once we become a follower we are to accept the terms of that relationship, which means we have to do what it takes to live a Biblically sound life.

This is where it gets even more tricky when it comes to our reputation. In many cases, we accept Christ into our lives but it simply becomes "fire insurance" because our lives continue to reflect the world instead of the cross. Our reputation, instead of being one of a nice person who lives a worldly lifestyle, becomes that of a hypocrite because we speak one thing and do another thing which completely contradicts what we said.

To live a life of worship that is completely authentic takes more than lip service. Take a look at what James has to say about this:

James 2:14-26 - What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds." Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that - and shudder. You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for wha the did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness," and he was called God's friend. You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone. In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in the different direction? As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

So now comes the tough question: What does your reputation look like? Do people believe that you live a life that worships the Almighty all day, every day, and in every way? If not, it may be time to have a Damascus Road experience yourself.

The Stoning of Stephen

I've been stewing on Acts 7 for a while now. At first glance, it's a fairly unassuming chapter due to most of it being dedicated to Stephen's speech to the Sanhedrin. However, if you look a little deeper, you see some things that may catch your heart a bit.

Now, remember back in Chapter 6 that Stephen had been falsley accused of speaking against the Law and the Temple. Verse 15 said that everyone in the room saw that Stephen's face was like the face of an angel. My best guess is that in that very moment, the Holy Spirit was filling Stephen with the strength he would need to answer the question that followed.

Acts 7:1 - Then the high priest asked him, "Are these charges true?"

An interesting side note here is that the high priest asking the question (according to most scholars and theologians) was Caiaphas, who was the very priest that set the wheels in motion for Jesus to be betrayed and ultimately killed. How ironic that he also presides over the making of the first Christian martyr?!

At this moment, Stephen could have done what you see much of on television these days. He could have gone the tried and true "no these accusations are purely false and I will prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that they are" route, but instead, God had a different plan for him. God had Stephen give the Sanhedrin a history lesson.

Reading through Verses 2-50, you will find a cliff notes version of the happenings between God and His chosen people from the time of Abraham all the way up to Solomon. One would think that this was to remind them of the amazing things God had done for them, but if you read it carefully you notice the common theme: Rejection of God's teachings and persecution of anyone who would bring them back to the forefront. This culminates with Stephen basically going postal on the Sanhedrin in Verses 51-53:

Acts 7:51-53 - "You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers; You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet that your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And how you have betrayed and murdered him - you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it."

Those words cost Stephen his life at the hands of the Sanhedrin. They stoned him to death for his beliefs. They stoned him to death for being an activist for his faith. They stoned him to death for stepping on their time honored laws, traditions, doctrines, and theologies. They stoned him to death for making them look bad in public. This event began the persecution of the church that spread and scattered it througout Judea and Samaria.

Now, while we don't see people physically stoned by others for their words and deeds in the church today, we see something very similar going on spiritually, emotionally, and mentally which is almost worse in some ways.

We have become too comfortable with our surroundings, trappings, traditions, methodologies, doctrines, practices, etc... This issue is not just with one certain age group either! It comes from people of ALL ages who don't want to compromise what they want in order to possibly do kingdom work. When someone comes along and challenges our positions on things that we are comfortable with, we lash out at them verbally to their face, and behind their back. We passive-aggressively undermine their position by gossipping about them and turning small things into giant issues. We choose to say "We've NEVER done it that way before", or "We've ALWAYS done it that way" in the hopes that whatever it is will be left alone. The sad part? This is NOT what God sent Jesus here to die for.

A life of Worship is not a life based on the trappings of traditional or modern practices. It is not a life based on the age of a person or their personal doctrines and agendas. It is a life that is totally surrendered to Him all day, every day, in every way. It is a life that reflects the love of Jesus to others just as the moon reflects the sun. It is a life that causes change just by simply being ready to serve God in whatever way He calls us to each and every time.

Instead of organizing petitions to save the Communion table or the carpet, we should be organizing food and clothing drives to help those less fortunate than ourselves.

Instead of complaining to others about musical style, we should be open to the idea that what is being played and sung may bring others to Christ much in the same way that our favorite musical style did for us.

God calls us to have an authentic worship relationship with Him in order that He might use us to bring someone else into that same relationship.

We are to lovingly rebuke, forgive, and educate instead of harshly rejecting, persecuting, and driving away.

We can only do these things if we choose to surrender ourselves completely to the purpose and plan that God has for us as followers of the teachings of Jesus.

Proclaim Christ, Teach of Christ, Serve Christ. Love God, Love People. Live True. Whatever you want to call it, it's a life of Worship!

Gossip, Lies, Deceit, and the Power of Faith

Acts 6:8-14 - Now Stephen, a man full of God's grace and power, did great wonders and miraculous signs among the people. Opposition arose, however, from members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called) - Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria as well as the provinces of Cilicia and Asia. These men began to argue with Stephen, but they coul dnot stand up against his wisdom or the Spirit by whom he spoke. Then they secretly persuaded some men to say, "We have heard Stephen speak words of blasphemy against Moses and against God." So they stirred up the people and the elders and the teachers of the law. They seized Stephen and brought him before the Sanhedrin. They produced false witnesses, who testified "This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us."

Stephen's story in Acts is a short one, but it brings out very vivid examples of what happens when we choose to follow Christ and allow Him to make us into men and women full of God's grace and power. Satan doesn't want this. In fact, he craves the exact opposite for us. Instead of being men and women full of God's grace and power, he would rather we be men and women full of lies, deceit, and selfish ambition.

When we make the decision to live a life that worships our Lord all day, every day, and in every way, it puts a target on our backs. We might as well call up Hell and declare open season on ourselves! It is NOT EASY, NOT SMOOTH, and NOT ENJOYABLE all the time. It is merely the beginning of a journey to build us into those men and women full of God's grace and power.

Oswald Chambers wrote in My Utmost For His Highest that God beats and pounds us into shape by fire and water, so that we might take a form that more closely resembles His image rather than our own. I can certainly relate to this, can you? His desire is to make us into people that have credibility that is more than skin deep. He desires for us to be in relationship with Him all the way to the core of our being. Stephen seemed to embody this to the point of being able to perform miracles and healings in addition to preaching the Word of Christ.

However, as we all know, one of the quickest and easiest ways to undermine someone's credibility is by destroying their reputation. We see this in Stephen's case. People with different viewpoints and opinions disagree with his teachings, so they seek to discredit him in whatever way possible.

Politicians and their staffers are masters at this. Mudslinging anyone? The Democrats and Republicans differ greatly on issues, so they continually try to discredit each other. Other faiths (and those with no faith at all) don't agree with the stances that followers of Christ take, so they do whatever they can to discredit us.

NOTE: We do a pretty good job of discrediting ourselves with our actions vs our words! The old adage that actions speak louder than words is SOOOO applicable to this!

A life of worship has to "walk the talk" at all times. We are called to a higher purpose, which means we have to put away the childish antics and the constant whining to have it our way. We are called to SERVE, and NOT TO BE SERVED. Stephen served Christ with all he had, and those who did not agree with his view sought to discredit him in front of the world. Now, this is where I really get excited about how authentic Stephen's relationship with and zeal for Christ actually was.

Acts 6:15 - All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel.

Even in the midst of the false accusations and fake witnesses, Stephen was so in tune with God that his face never changed expression! He maintained a face of truth, dignity, and it shown like an angel in the room. He knew what was real and what was not, regardless of the falsehoods being spewed. It didn't matter what man said about him for his faith was not in man.

We'll talk more about Stephen in Chapter 7 when something that is so unthinkable to us here in America happens to him for his faith in Jesus.