Personal Branding

What is about Tide that makes it such a recognized laundry detergent? Before you ask what a guy like me would know about laundry detergent, my mother did teach me how to wash clothes, and you learned which detergents worked best (FYI - I’m not a big Arm & Hammer fan ).  However, I knew about Tide long before I ever used it because it had a strong brand name.  One of the latest trends in career planning focuses on the phase ‘personal branding.’ This in short means ‘what you are known for.’  This includes facts about you, reputation, and impression made by you.  It makes one think about our spiritual brand.  Do we represent worldly values or those that God would expect of us?  What would our brand look like?

We should represent God in ways that honor Him at all times. There are times where we represent ourselves above God.  In many of those instances, things do not work out well.  This can be harmful to the message of the Good News as many who seek God gain an understanding of Him through our actions and behavior.  Although this may seem to be an unfair burden, it is part of our being representatives of Christ.  Put another way, we represent the brand of Christ Jesus to those who do not know Him.  Thus when we truly represent Christ in a way that honors Him, we display all of those values that we ourselves saw when we gave our lives to Him.  Love, acceptance, forgiveness, and kindness were all things that I found when I decided to follow Him.  They became ingrained in me, and as a result God uses those things to help share His message to others.  Furthermore, He inspired me to be bolder in sharing my faith and understanding in helping others when they did not see God as I did.  We all have something foundational within ourselves when we decided to follow Christ.  We must harken back to the foundational parts of our faith for when we do, we show the world the relationship we have forged with Him that love onto others as He first loved us.

God gave us so much for the opportunity to serve Him. Jesus came, and offered Himself as a sacrifice to remove the burden of our sins.  This is nothing new to us, but with this gift of grace, we must accept our representation of Him.  As Jesus points out in the Parable of the farmer planting seeds, we can choose to be either a seed that falls in rocky soil having temporary joy only to have it lost (Matthew 13:20-21), amidst the thorns producing nothing (Matthew 13:22), or in fertile soil rooted in hearing and understanding God’s word to produce a harvest larger than ourselves (Matthew 13:23).  Let us resolve to take up the mantle representing Christ in all we do.  How can you represent less of yourself and more of Christ today?  Who can you talk with to help ensure your branding is in alignment with Christ?  My prayer is that Jesus Christ is fully representative of our personal brand.  Amen.