I’m with stupid

What difference does a name really make?

By the end of the '60s, many anti-establishment hippies had moved to Santa Cruz, California. Like so many others, they married and had children. When their children were born, they didn’t give them names like Melissa or Brett. Their neighbors, in and around Santa Cruz, grew accustomed to their children playing with little Time Warp or Spring Fever. 

As we all know, children grow, so eventually, it came time for Moonbeam, Earth, Love, and Precious Promise to go to public schools. It is here in our story that the kindergarten teachers first met Fruit Stand.

Every fall, mothers put name tags on their children, kissed them good-bye, and sent them off to board the school bus. It was not different for Fruit Stand. His mother pinned his name tag to his shirt and sent him to school.

Even the seasoned kindergarten teachers thought the boy’s name was a bit odd. However, they determined to make the best of it. “Would you like to play with the blocks, Fruit Stand,” they offered? At snack time they asked, “Fruit Stand, how about a snack?” He always looked confused when they spoke to him but accepted hesitantly. By the end of the day, his name didn’t seem much odder then Heather’s or Sun Ray’s.

The end of the school day arrived and it was time for the teachers to lead the children out to the busses. “Fruit Stand, do you know which one is your bus?” He just stood there looking confused. It wasn’t all that strange because he had been doing it all day. And besides, lots of children are shy on the first day of school.

The teachers had planned ahead for just such a situation. They had instructed the mothers to write the names of their children’s bus stop on the reverse side of their name tags. Fruit Stand’s teacher reached down and turned over his name tag. There, neatly printed, was one word, “Anthony.”

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Names matter.  Words matter.  Sometimes we get labels and titles and names mixed up and it can be funny. And it can also be awful.  Usually unintentionally awful, but nonetheless...

I'm amazed at how rarely we think about how we talk and think about ourselves as believers.  We call ourselves or refer to ourselves with some of the most unflattering, demoralizing, unhelpful, and/or untrue ideas, concepts or descriptions.

For example:

• "Well, I'm only a sinner, saved by grace."  
• "...for such a worm as I".  
• "I don't know we can ever know if we're right with God or saved till we die.  I hope I'm saved."
• "We are all so weak and fragile."
• "I can't believe how bad I am."
• "I'm no better than _________"
• "Well, I'm no saint!"
• "Backsliders."
• "I'm church of Christ" (or Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, etc.)
• "We're only human."
• "We do our best and God's grace will make up the rest."
• "God must be really mad/disappointed in me for ________."

And I could add some even worse ideas/concepts, but I don't even want to put them down for fear that someone would see them and start using them on themselves or others.

And looking at the examples, I know there are probably people who would say, "Well, what's wrong with those things?!  Of course those are all true things - nothing wrong with saying those about people."  That's because it's what we're used to and don't often or ever think of anything different.  "It's normal".

Sure, you probably could find a verse in the scriptures to "back up" using one of these, but in the vast majority of cases, it would taking a scripture out of context and using it to support ideas that we are projecting on to God and then back on to ourselves.

That's not the way God refers to us.  If you read through the letters written to and about local churches, the descriptions of our or names used for us are very different.  

For example:

• Saints - YES, we're saints.  Culture has us saying, "Well, I'm no saint", but that's not what God says.
• Accepted - We are already, right now, and forever, accepted by him.  Already done.
• Adopted - He has taken our debt, forgiven it, given us his name, and will never abandon us. Ever.
• Brought to fullness - We are already "completed" state in his sight.  It's already done.
• United with him in Spirit - We are participants in the divine nature - he doesn't ever flee from us.
• Made in his image - 'Nuff said.
• One in Christ - We are unified in ways we can't image or see yet - we each other and with God.
• Temples of his Holy Spirit - He lives in us already and right now and people can meet him there.
• A chosen people - He actually wants us, doesn't begrudgingly take us in.
• Royal priesthood - We have been given the ability to help people connect with God!
• A holy nation - We have an identity!  His name is on our shirt and we are on his team!
• His precious or cherished possession - He keeps us in a special place to protect and enjoy us.
• Family of God - We're actually his family now - and God's not ashamed of us and neither is Jesus.
• Child of God - He sees us as his children and he is a GOOD dad, unlike how some dads might be.
• Ambassador of Christ - He has given us the ability to share Jesus - it's a blessing/honor from him.

I know that's a ham-handed, clumsy listing of amazing things, but the idea remains - we need seriously consider how we think about ourselves, talk about ourselves, and talk about others.

May it be the case that you at least consider thinking of yourself in the ways that God actually is referred to as describing you or thinking about you as is recorded in the letters of the New Testament - you know, the places where Paul and others are passing on this new understanding of ourselves because of what God did and does in Jesus.

May you take every thought captive and make it submissive to Christ and NOT submissive to what a potentially unthinking preacher, leader, fellow Christian, non-believer, or pop culture might say - run it all through the filter of Jesus and let him remind you of who you are now in him.

A lot of people will call you "Fruit Stand", spiritually speaking.

If you're not careful, you might adopt the name they give you.  

Wait for Anthony.  

You are Anthony.

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Grace, peace, and many reminder of who you are in Christ to you...