This is one of my favorite seasons of the year, second only to Advent and Christmas. It is the time when football kicks off for both college and pro teams. In preparation for the new football season, today, Friday, September 4, has been declared, "National Wear Your Colors Day."
As I sit here, I am wearing one of my favorite University of Georgia tee shirts. I love my UGA gear: I have a jersey, several other tee shirts, sweat shirts and hoodies, pajama pants, key chains, ball caps, sandals, crocs, a UGA license plate, a static cling window decoration, screensaver, desktop wallpaper, ink pens, lapel pens, and the fight song running through my head on a loop. So when I learned earlier this week that today was "Wear Your Colors" day, I wanted to make sure my favorite shirt was clean and ready to go; except, of course for the one I'm going to wear when the Dawgs kick off the 2009 season tomorrow afternoon.
I have been convicted for several years about the passion and energy I put into my love of sports. Tiffany can attest I am infinitely better than I was when we first married, but I do get pumped up over a big win and deflated over a devastating loss. I have come to put sports into a much more appropriate perspective in my life, though I still have to check myself over how high or low I get in terms of things that mean very little in the grand scheme of things, and mean absolutely nothing in an eternal sense. I don't think God minds us loving sports, but He certainly cares if we allow them to take a god-like status in our lives, becoming an idol that governs our emotions, motives, and actions.
God wants us to live lives of passion for Him as well as those He has placed in our lives. He wants us to share our love and allegiance for Him in a stronger way than we do for our favorite teams. He wants us to wear our love and faith for Him on our sleeves, so to speak, as we seek to share Him with the world.
In Colossians 3.12-14, Paul wrote, "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity." (NIV) In these lines, Paul is giving us an idea of who it looks when we wear our God-colors; clothing ourselves with the light and love of God.
When we wear the colors of faith, the world takes notice! These colors don't tell people where we went to school or which teams we follow, but they do say to whom we belong ... GOD! ... and we wear these colors to share the incredible love and grace of God with others. Unlike the results from a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, these are things that have eternal consequence and will never let us down. If we could only say the same thing about our favorite teams...
It seems we don't have any problem sharing our sports allegiances with the world. We need to have as much pride and conviction in our faith. We need to clothe ourselves in Christian love and share the colors of God with the world. We don't have any secrets to keep, but to share the greatest story ever told!
Jesus said it this way in the Sermon on the Mount, "Here's another way to put it: You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill." (Matthew 5.14, MSG)
Have a great "Wear Your Colors Day" and make sure you're dressing yourself in the colors of faith!
As I sit here, I am wearing one of my favorite University of Georgia tee shirts. I love my UGA gear: I have a jersey, several other tee shirts, sweat shirts and hoodies, pajama pants, key chains, ball caps, sandals, crocs, a UGA license plate, a static cling window decoration, screensaver, desktop wallpaper, ink pens, lapel pens, and the fight song running through my head on a loop. So when I learned earlier this week that today was "Wear Your Colors" day, I wanted to make sure my favorite shirt was clean and ready to go; except, of course for the one I'm going to wear when the Dawgs kick off the 2009 season tomorrow afternoon.
I have been convicted for several years about the passion and energy I put into my love of sports. Tiffany can attest I am infinitely better than I was when we first married, but I do get pumped up over a big win and deflated over a devastating loss. I have come to put sports into a much more appropriate perspective in my life, though I still have to check myself over how high or low I get in terms of things that mean very little in the grand scheme of things, and mean absolutely nothing in an eternal sense. I don't think God minds us loving sports, but He certainly cares if we allow them to take a god-like status in our lives, becoming an idol that governs our emotions, motives, and actions.
God wants us to live lives of passion for Him as well as those He has placed in our lives. He wants us to share our love and allegiance for Him in a stronger way than we do for our favorite teams. He wants us to wear our love and faith for Him on our sleeves, so to speak, as we seek to share Him with the world.
In Colossians 3.12-14, Paul wrote, "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity." (NIV) In these lines, Paul is giving us an idea of who it looks when we wear our God-colors; clothing ourselves with the light and love of God.
When we wear the colors of faith, the world takes notice! These colors don't tell people where we went to school or which teams we follow, but they do say to whom we belong ... GOD! ... and we wear these colors to share the incredible love and grace of God with others. Unlike the results from a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, these are things that have eternal consequence and will never let us down. If we could only say the same thing about our favorite teams...
It seems we don't have any problem sharing our sports allegiances with the world. We need to have as much pride and conviction in our faith. We need to clothe ourselves in Christian love and share the colors of God with the world. We don't have any secrets to keep, but to share the greatest story ever told!
Jesus said it this way in the Sermon on the Mount, "Here's another way to put it: You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill." (Matthew 5.14, MSG)
Have a great "Wear Your Colors Day" and make sure you're dressing yourself in the colors of faith!
1 comment:
Did you say anything after UGA? I had to stop reading after that.
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