And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.

The title of today's entry is taken from the latter part of Acts 11:26. The disciples did not get together, form a committee, and bring a vote before the church on what to call themselves. No, the term "Christian" was given to them by those who were on the outside, looking in at Antioch. They noticed how the disciples carried themselves and deported themselves and gave them that name as a descriptive term.

What were they doing that caused the people of Antioch to place that name on them? They were following and being like Christ! Here is a statement I heard Evangelist Jayson Godsey make at Sr. High Camp at couple of weeks ago and the Holy Spirit has spurred me to preach a series of messages on the subject:

All Christians are saved, but not all the saved are Christians.

This may sound contradictory to you at first, but a person can repent of their sin, accept Jesus Christ as their Saviour, but not follow Him as they should and not make Him Lord of their life. Now, there are some who try to combat this by adding a step, if you would, to the process of salvation by saying something to the effect of, "You cannot make Jesus your Saviour if you do not make Him your Lord, too." This is what is called "Lordship Salvation," but yet it has no Biblical foundation.

There are many born-again believers who are not fully following the Lord, and thus, are not Christians according to the Bible definition of a Christian. My question to you today is two-fold:

#1 - Do you know Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour? If not, ask me how, and I would be glad to take the Word of God and show you how you can know for sure that when your life ends here on this earth, heaven will be your home for eternity.

#2 - Are you a Christian? Not by the world's standards, because to the world, everything that is even remotely religious is considered "Christian." No, I am wondering if someone can look at your life and say that you are a follower of Christ. That should be the goal of all of God's children, to be like Christ. And we should be more like Him today than we were yesterday, and want to be more like Him tomorrow than we are today.