Have you ever hidden your name or identity to go unnoticed? Today, people seek out privacy, especially on the internet. Many fill their closets with secret desires rather than prayers and devotion to God. By dismissing God, society acts irresponsibly for its behavior.

            As repeated throughout the Scriptures, God’s name is holy (Lev 22:32; Ps 111:9). Jesus declared that God’s name is holy (Matt 6:9; Luke 11:2). Furthermore, Jesus taught that baptism is in a single name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Matt 28:19–20). Throughout Acts, baptism is in Jesus’s name, in water, and for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38; 10:47–48). In the name of Christ, the believer is washed, made holy, and justified (1 Cor 6:11). Life is only the name of Jesus Christ (John 20:31). As Christians, believers are saved and live by the name of Christ (Acts 4:12).

            No Christian can live anonymously in the world apart from Christ’s name as some today. Peter expressed, “If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. […] Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name” (1 Pet 4:14, 16 ESV; cf. Acts 4:10). No disciple can present oneself as a person with no affiliation with God and Christ at any time. The person who avoids recognition as a Christian to live anonymously, without the name — Christ's name — is sinning and not living as a Christian.

            Wherever you are, hold the name of Christ. Never deny Christ. Acknowledge and confess Jesus at all times. Do not hide as a nameless person and Christ-less person on the internet, in texts, in phone calls, via email, in an online chat, at a party, in a classroom, in a hotel room in another town, or any time with another person who does not know that you are Christian. 

            Jesus declared, “So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven” (Matt 10:32–33).

            The apostle proclaimed no other name by which one may be saved other than Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12). Solomon revealed, “The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe” (Prov 18:10 ESV). Thank God for He 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” (Phil 2:9–11).