As people we depend quite heavily upon ones reputation.  I suspect it has been this way since the beginning.  Depending upon how we view someone or some thing, we make choices about them.  Reputations have served people in many ways.  They may keep people from us or draw them to us.  Conflicts have been started and avoided, based upon what people or nations have thought about the other.  Jobs, lovers, and prestige are at some level gained by reputation.  What  we say about ourselves directly or indirectly effects our reputation.  How others perceive us though, says more about this idea of reputation.

     We can spend years putting forth an image or message that we want known about us, and it can be perceived wrongly.  All the time spent building ones reputation can be torn down in an instant if we somehow fail in the eyes of another.  It seems that our reputations are important to us, but what is it that we as believers want to be said about us?

     Character, is a large part of what makes up our reputation.  Our character speaks volumes about us, and is an area that the bible sheds great light on.  How we are viewed by the world around us is important to God. By the Word, the Holy Spirit, and community, God shapes us and builds our character.  The very fruit of the Spirit that flows out of a believer who desires to follow Christ, is much of what the world can see and experience.  This out pouring, adds to our reputation as people and as followers of Christ.

     Though our reputations  are important to us and play a great role in our lives, they really are to express Christ, to those around us.  We are his ambassadors and children of the King.  Others need to see Christ in us, and Jesus shows us how.  As we read the scriptures, Jesus did not care about his personal reputation.  He wanted the Father to be seen.  He lived in such a way as to point people to God.  Jesus turned reputation upside down, in Philippians 2: 1-11, Paul writes,

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.  Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.  Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.  Have this mind  among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God ,did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of  God the Father.  (ESV)

     Let us follow Christ’s example of what is important.  It wasn’t about his personal reputation, it was about the Fathers.

Picture: Every Thorn Has Its Rose, by peasap