modern day parable

The past week I spent in Baltimore and had plenty of time at night to read and think about different things. One of the books I read made an interesting inquiry. In the Bible, the first Christians were labeled that by outsiders as the outsiders saw them following Christ and labeled them as Christians. Now days, people label themselves as Christians, but would outsiders still label many of these people as Christians by watching their actions and hearing them speak? This makes me think about how I live my life and if I label myself as a Christian or if others would label me as a Christian that didn't know me.

I also heard a couple analogies that really intrigued me. They almost seem to me to be like a modern day parable. When someome enters the military, they must follow all kinds of rules and are not allowed to say what you want and don't want to do. Why is Christianity not like this? Why can Christians determine which of God's commandments we want to follow and which ones we don't. We don't question the rules of the military so why do we question the commandments of Christianity?

The second analogy I heard was following God is like going the opposite direction on an escalator. If we just stand still, we are going to drift further away from our destination. In order to get to our destination, we must pursue it and walk in the opposite direction that a lot of people are going. It probably won't be easy and we may get a lot off weird looks, but we must continue to pursue the destination in order to get there. In no way am I perfect, in fact I would say that I'm standing still most of the time, but I think this gives Christians something to think about each day as we go through our daily lives.