Christians.

Hey. My name is Avery. Avery Marie Zorn. I am a junior in college. I am in a sorority. I play guitar. I wear a nose ring...not a stud, a ring. I cut six inches off my hair this past summer. I like to wear jeans. I usually read the same books over and over again. I never listen to the radio. Most things I do, I do because I think they’re “cool.” Sometimes I don’t know how to trust people. I don’t usually like to talk, but I love people. I think people are the most important things on this planet. 

I am a Christian. 

Since moving to a college town a little over two years ago, I have stopped using the word Christian. Even as I sat down to write this, I didn’t expect to call myself a Christian. In my social sphere, no one really uses the word. We call each other “believers” or “followers.” But, now that I think about it, there is definitely a reason that the early Church identified themselves as “Christians.” They were taking the name of Jesus upon themselves. They wanted everyone to know “WE BELONG TO CHRIST!” It very well may be that a “believer” in our society is someone who is scared to associate themselves with the name of Christ. But, when we don’t use his name, we are prone to forget everything he did for us. Everything he stood for. Everything he is asking us to do for him. 

You may have not ever thought about it this way. I really hadn’t until today. But I do think it is very important that we take a minute a think about this. What are the implications of this new name we’ve given ourselves?

In my life, using the title “Believer” has been an easy out for myself and those around me. Realistically, in a small southern college town, “believers” are probably make up the majority of students. There are a lot of people who believe in Jesus, believe that he lived and died for their sins and rose again on the third day. But there aren’t a lot of Christians: people who are willing to lay down their pride and take it to the next level. To say, “Yeah, this Jesus guy may not be the ‘coolest,’ but I am going to associate my name with His. That is my identity.”

If you know anything about the apostle Paul, it is probably that he was once a passionate Christian-hater and that he wrote over half of the New Testament. But there’s got to be a ton of little details that none of us know about this man. We know he suffered, and in a couple places he even listed some of the persecutions he faced, but we will never know the details of the pain he actually experienced. Paul, writing to the Philippians expressed his excitement for the name of Jesus. He wrote, 

“...AS IS IT MY EAGER EXPECTATION AND HOPE THAT I WILL NOT BE AT ALL ASHAMED, BUT THAT WITH FULL COURAGE NOW AS ALWAYS CHRIST WILL BE HONORED IN MY BODY, WHETHER BY LIFE OR BY DEATH. FOR TO ME TO LIVE CHRIST, AND TO DIE IS GAIN... INDEED I COUNT EVERYTHING AS LOSS BECAUSE OF THE SURPASSING WORTH OF KNOWING CHRIST JESUS MY LORD. FOR HIS SAKE I HAVE SUFFERED THE LOSS OF ALL THINGS AND COUNT THEM AS RUBBISH, IN ORDER THAT I MAY GAIN CHRIST" (Philippians 1:20-21, 3:8). 

Everything Paul suffered and everything he did well didn’t matter one bit to him without the promise of a life with Jesus. 

We may not have ever consciously meant to disassociate ourselves with the name of Jesus. But it has become a habit. We’ve got to get out of the rut. I think somewhere in the back of my mind when I have called myself a believer, it’s given me a little bit of ease about my identity. That maybe by not calling myself a Christian, I won’t put the burden of a negative connotation on my shoulders. But Jesus told us that his yoke is easy and his burden is light (Matthew 11:30). 

I can’t live like this anymore. If I’m going to commit to this, I’ve got to go all in. I can’t try to live a life like Christ without calling myself his. So from now on, I will tell people that my name is Avery and I am a Christian.