Today's Devotional

August 20, 2003

Subject:  Don't Let Your Name Beat You Home

Philippians 1:27 - "Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;"

I had never heard this expression until the other day when a coworker used it and it makes sense in the "old-fashioned" world that I grew up in.  In that world, you were just as likely to get a "switch" from the next door neighbor as you were from your mom and dad.  In that world, everybody knew everybody.  Wilbur was the guy riding the bicycle down the street everyday.  "DW" was the man with the alcohol problem hanging around the Super Save Food Market.  And the Clark's were the family of boys who were always into mischief, whether it was smoking, drinking, stealing or just "thugging" as we called it.  Then there was Mrs. Ferguson whose husband had passed away and she lived alone.  She had a great yard of pear trees and frequently chased us out of the yard with a broom.  

In this community, if someone stepped out of line somewhere, the information could funnel through a "wireless" network and get back to your parents before you even put a foot in the house.  By the time you got there, you would be greeted with, "why were you over at ____ doing ______.   Just fill in the blank with the disorderly conduct.  That's the case where "your name beat you home."  

In the verse above, it says let your conversation (conduct) be as it becometh the gospel of Christ.  Paul admonishes the Philippian believers to live a life of sobriety and righteousness so that the information he hears through the "grapevine" will be good news and not a case of the "name beating them home."  

Just as the old-fashioned wireless network allowed negative information to get to our parents before we realized anybody knew, The Father always get the information immediately and not only immediately, but even before that.  With our Heavenly Father, by the time you get home, you will already have been punished.

Carlen