Our Scripture for today is John 13:34-35.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” – Jesus
Samuel Augustus lived from 1803 to 1870. He was a Texas lawyer, politician, land baron and signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence.
That is a great resume, but it gets more interesting. As a land baron, he was also a rancher. Either he did not believe in branding his cattle or else he was just forgetful. While all his rancher neighbors branded their cattle, Samuel usually did not. The neighbors finally got used to his strange ways and when they found his cattle mixing with theirs, they knew which were his and didn’t complain. They just referred to an unbranded cow as “Mavericks.” You see, Samuel’s last name was Maverick and the unbranded cows were considered to be “Maverick’s.”
This idea stuck and even today is applied to people who go their own way and do their own thing. They are sometimes called mavericks.
I thought this was interesting because in Christianity there should be no “mavericks.”
Oh, we are uniquely ourselves, but as Christians, we all have characteristics that show we are Christians. That is what Jesus said in today’s scripture reading, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciple.”
Pauls recognized this and said, “I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.” (Galatians 6:17).
We also need to live our life in such a way that people can see that we are disciples of Jesus.
Lonnie Davis