PASTOR OLUWASEYI OSANYINBI
[biblegateway passage=”LUKE 3:1″ display=”LUKE 3:1″]; [biblegateway passage=”JOB 2:1-3″ display=”JOB 2:1-3″]; [biblegateway passage=”ACTS 16:1-2″ display=”ACTS 16:1-2″]; [biblegateway passage=”ROMANS 1:8″ display=”ROMANS 1:8″]; [biblegateway passage=”REVELATION 3:14-16″ display=”REVELATION 3:14-16″]
Reputation is the summation of the beliefs and opinions that are generally held about someone or something. Reputation is the way in which people think of you. It is your overall quality and character as seen and judged by people in general. You can have a good or bad reputation. You can’t go far in life without a good reputation. You earn a reputation based on the things you have done. As far as you are living, you have a record. Everybody has a reputation.
Pontius Pilate as the Governor of Judea had the right to free Jesus when He was falsely accused but he would not do that because of his was trying to keep his reputation intact. He wouldn’t free Jesus because of how he would look before the people.
Job had a good reputation before God and God could boast about him to Satan. God saw Job as perfect and upright in all his ways. Job ‘got into trouble’ because of his good reputation so that he could really be proved. We will always need to go through tests in order to prove our reputation. Job got into higher dimensions of blessings after he passed his reputation test. You cannot be trusted if you have not been tested.
Timothy had an excellent reputation among the people in the churches in Lystra and Iconium and that was also true before God. He was reliable, dependable and trustworthy as a result of the kind of life he lived. People must be able to vouch for us in the Church based on our sincere attitude. We need to pay attention to the things we do, say and stand for so that we can have enviable reputation. There should be an alignment between what we do and say.
The Roman Church had a reputation that their faith was authentic just like the Antioch Church had a reputation of Christlikeness. In the Book of Revelation, there are different churches with both good and bad reputation. The Laodicean church had a reputation that they were self sufficient and hardly had need of God. You must know that the fact that everything is going well does not mean that God is with you. The fact that everything is not working fine does not mean that God is not with you. We must be very careful of our desire to be rich because it can expose us to temptations.
Riches can make us come to a place of self sufficiency, leaving God out of the equation of our lives. Circumstances should not shut down our knowledge of the unflinching goodness of God. Our reputation can be predicated on our relationship with God and men as well as our attitude towards both pleasant and unpleasant circumstances.
We must be careful not to want to impress men at the expense of God. Our reputation with God is more important than our reputation with men. People’s opinion about us is nothing compared to God’s opinion. We need God to help us build a rock solid reputation for good, that is the only guarantee we have to go far with Him. We need to be exceptionally concerned about our reputation before God.