Apr. 21: Team Colors

Orange and Maroon are not my favorite colors, especially together. But I made a fashion exception yesterday, like so many others in our state and across the nation. These are the colors of the Virginia Tech Hokies and on Friday people everywhere donned the school’s colors to show support following the deaths of 33 students on that campus earlier this week. Colors make a statement.

We have an increasing concern in our city about the presence and influence of gangs. The gangs each have their own colors to identify themselves. Certain color hats, bandanas and even shoestrings are banned from local schools because they incite violence between gang members. Colors are important.

I was just wondering, if Christ-followers had “official colors” what they might be. Perhaps gold for heaven’s streets, or blue for baptismal waters, or green to symbolize the growth and maturity taking place in each life.

I think though the best colors would be red and white. The prophet extended an invitation on God’s behalf: “Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. (Isaiah 1:18) The red would remind us who we were, the white would remind us who we are. Together they would remind us of the difference made in a life when Jesus is invited in.

"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us." (1 Peter 2:9-12)

Colors are important. Colors make a statement. What if we had team colors like athletes and their fans so you could identify who’s on our “team”? That would be neat. But our identifying mark is not a color, it is an attitude and an action: "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:35)

Love is not so much a feeling as it is a chosen action. We show our “team colors” by the way we treat our “teammates”, strangers and even our enemies. It is costly to love like God does. It is painful to love people like God does. The first-century Christ followers stood in contrast to their non-Christian neighbors. It was said of them that “they out-lived, out-loved and out-died” those around them. Can your neighbors tell by your words and actions that you’re on God’s “team”?

~ Father, may there never be a question as to whether or not I belong to your “team”, Your family. May I demonstrate Your kind of love to people no matter the cost to me personally. Amen.