I am writing this a few days ahead of the Monday morning publishing date and happened to realize it is a special day. If my mom had not died, today would have been her ninety-second birthday. In fact, tomorrow would have been my dad’s ninety-fourth birthday. I think of them often and even though it has been over ten years since they both passed away, I still miss them very much.
One memory of Dad is his insistence that we behaved ourselves, especially when we were away from home. At the onset of every new school year, I would hear an admonition something like this, “If you get in trouble at school, you will get the same punishment when you get home.” I thought of this one time in elementary school when the teacher made me sit in the hall because I was talking too much. Imagine that! As I sat there, I decided I was not going to tell my dad about this little unfortunate incident. The excuse went something like this: Dad said I would get the same punishment at home and our house didn’t even have a hall so he couldn’t follow through with his threat anyway. I walked into the house from the bus and my loving big sister blurted out, “John (that’s what my family calls me) had to sit in the hall today, I saw him!” My father found a way to compensate for the lack of a hall in our home.
I didn’t understand dad’s reasoning until much later in life. He had been raised to honor his family name. What one person in the family did, either good or bad, reflected on the other members of that family. He was trying to pass this same level of respect on to me. I was a Gilbert and what I did reflected on the other Gilberts. The Gilberts had a good reputation in our community and Dad didn’t want me messing that up.
This is the principle behind God’s admonition to us to be men who maintain a good reputation. As Christ followers, we have taken the name Christian. Christ is the Son of God, so, what we do, both good and bad, reflects on that eternal family.
I recently read a little anecdote that went something like this. A man was driving aggressively, cutting off people in traffic, yelling at people in his way and flashing an obscene hand gesture out the window. He was soon pulled over by a police officer who asked the man if he knew why he had been stopped. The driver said he did not, so the officer explained. “I was watching how you drive. When I saw the bumper sticker that said, ‘Jesus is my co-pilot’ and noticed your mean spirit, I assumed the car must be stolen.
This might seem humorous, but it is very profound. If people know you claim to be a follower of Christ but see characteristics in your life that are inconsistent with who Jesus is, it is confusing and even can cause them to disregard any challenge to follow Jesus in their own lives.
Therefore we are called to be men who maintain a good reputation. We represent a NAME that is holy and powerful, and we must represent it well.
By the way, this is not a call to just keeping a good reputation in the community. This is a call to consistency. There is no place where a good reputation is more important than in your home. If you are going to claim the name of Jesus, it is Jesus who must be seen in you by your spouse and children. They are the ones God has given to us to disciple first.
Take a moment and evaluate what people see in you. Have the courage to ask your wife and your children if there are areas of your life you are blind to that may not be representing Christ well. We are not perfect, but we can grow. This is an opportunity to do so.