This\nmay, or may not, come as a surprise to you; however, the first followers of\nJesus didn\u2019t call themselves \u201cChristians.\u201d \nIt was, in fact, a derogatory term used by people outside the Jesus\ncommunity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Acts 11:26\nreads, \u201cIn Antioch the disciples were\nfirst called Christians\u201d (ESV). <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n They were called by others. It was not the\nname they chose for themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What then did<\/strong> they call themselves? <\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nanswer is right there in the verse: disciples. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nword \u201cChristian\u201d is only used 3 times in the whole Bible; whereas, the term \u201cdisciple\u201d\nis used 281 times in NT. And yet today,\nwe normally describe ourselves and others as Christians rather than disciples. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sadly,\naltering the term that we use to describe ourselves, believers have lost the\nclarity the word \u201cdisciple\u201d conveyed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, as Steve Lawson notes in his book The Cost<\/em>, our use of \u201cChristian\u201d\ntoday obscures the fact that a lot of people who call themselves Christians are\nnot actually disciples,<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c\u2026large\nnumbers of people, who either attend church or who are morally good people,\nwrongly presume that they have a right relationship with God. Tragically,\nthough, they have never actually committed their lives to Him. Surely, they\nknow about Jesus. They have a degree of knowledge about Him in their\nheads, but they do not truly know Him in their hearts. They have been lulled\ninto a false sense of assurance about salvation that they do not possess.\nChurches are full of such people\u2026In many pulpits, the message of salvation has\nbeen obscured, if not altered. As a result, many people pull up short of\nwhat it truly is to be an authentic believer in Jesus. I fear that many\nthink they are trusting in Him, but, in reality, have not yet done so. Instead,\nthey have believed in a sugar-coated message with a shallow imitation\nof the real truth. The result is a synthetic salvation.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Scriptures\nspeaks directly of this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n – Matthew 7:22 – On that day many will say to me, \u201cLord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?\u201d When\nwe read The Parable of the Wheat and Tares, we see that in opposition to Jesus\nChrist, the devil tries to destroy Christ\u2019s work by placing false believers and\nteachers in the world who lead many astray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Matthew\n13:37-39 reads, He answered, \u201cThe one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man.\n The field is the world, and the good\nseed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and\nthe enemy who sowed them is the devil.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nChurch in America is increasingly questioning historical, orthodox beliefs on\nhomosexuality, gender roles, sufficiency of Scripture\/Christ\u2019s death, and this\nmay be, in large part, due to the result of tares amongst the wheat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So\nlet\u2019s pray and work towards \u201cDisciples,\u201d a terrifyingly clear term of what an\nindividual becomes when they truly place their faith in Christ.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This may, or may not, come as a surprise to you; however, the first followers of Jesus didn\u2019t call themselves \u201cChristians.\u201d It was, in fact, a derogatory term used by people outside the Jesus community. Acts 11:26 reads, \u201cIn Antioch the disciples were first called Christians\u201d (ESV). They were called by others. It was not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christian-living"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/oganic-600x300.png","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/oganic-600x300.png","author_info":{"display_name":"Kent Husted","author_link":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/author\/khusted\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
– 2 Corinthians 13:5 \u2013 \u201cExamine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?\u2014unless indeed you fail to meet the test!\u201d
– 1 John is an excellent test of salvation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n