Comment: After nearly 5 years of writing this devotional I have decided to keep on as long as I am physically able and feel that it is what God wants me to do – I will still use the ESV translation but sometimes do a topical word study. Every day I will quote a Proverb, along with the Prayer at the end. I have chosen the word ‘Christian’ today – a word which is only used three times in the Bible but is used frequently in everyday speech. In everyday speech it means a number of different things, depending on the context. Some of the modern attachments are to churches, denominations, educational facilities, areas of social outreach, and missions These denominations are not always following the Faith which as Jude in his letter says ‘I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed ……., who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.’ Institutions of various kinds may well be set up by Christian people with excellent motives but we will see that the Biblical use of the word describes people, not institutions. It is often used as a personal title (eg on a census form) to mean nothing more than that the user was born in a country where the predominant ‘religion’ is “Christianity’ or sometimes because they live under the attempt ‘to do unto others as they would do unto you’, or something similar.
Acts 11: 26 And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians. In its first usage the word refers to people who were following Jesus as He was personally known to some of them and the teachers under whom they were discipled! They were disciples of the Christ, Who is Jesus. All of the epistles of Paul, Peter, John, Jude and the book called ‘Hebrews’ emphasise that deviation from the Apostles teaching was error and heresy!
Acts 26: 28-29 And Agrippa said to Paul, “In a short time would you persuade me to be a Christian?” 29 And Paul said, “Whether short or long, I would to God that not only you but also all who hear me this day might become such as I am—except for these chains.” – Here, where it was potentially at great personal cost, we find Paul attempting to win people to the Christian Faith! He ended up shipped to Rome and martyred for his faith. Many people around the world are still martyred. I think 700 so far this year!
1 Peter 4:15-16 But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. – As seen above Paul suffered but here Peter simply states that Christians might well suffer for their commitment to Jesus, but their lives were meant to be reflections of the character which Christ had shown by His living on earth.
Proverbs 21 v2 Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the heart.
Prayer: Gracious God help me that my living will be appropriate to my confession of discipleship!
As I read it! 