Directly after you were baptized, and before you were given back to your godmother, the priest at the font made on your forehead the sign of the cross: “in token,” as he said, “that hereafter you shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified, and manfully to fight under his banner.”

Your surname is your earthly-family name. It is a “supername,” to distinguish people who have the same Christian names. Some surnames were first given because of people’s trades (Carpenter, Smith, Baker, Painter); others because of their parents (Williamson, Johnson, Jackson). Your Christian name is your heavenly-family name: the name by which God and your guardian angel know you. So your Christian name should remind you that you belong to God {Isaiah 43, 1).

When the sign of the cross was made on you at the font, you enlisted in God’s army, the Church Militant (“fighting: military”) on earth; and

YOUR CHRISTIAN NAME
IS YOUR FIGHTING NAME.

Because you are a Christian, there are things that you are bound to do and things that you are bound not to do. Also because you are a Christian, there are three powerful enemies who, so long as you are in this world, will fight against you, and try to make you do the wrong things and not do the right things; because they are God’s enemies, and want to keep you from heaven.

As a British soldier fights under the banner of the Union Jack, so every Christian soldier has to fight against three enemies stronger than Germans, Italians, or Japanese; and the Christian’s fight for Jesus Christ (2 Timothy 2, 3) lasts as long as life in this world.