The football pre-season is about to begin where I live. This year, my husband and I have season tickets to our local Rugby League team, the Brisbane Broncos. The season doesn’t start until March, but early in the new year, we went into our local sports store to buy our team jerseys. We are looking forward to taking our place in the stands with thousands of other Broncos supporters, proudly wearing our maroon and yellow, cheering for our team.
Lining up at the gates before each game, you can clearly see which team we support. What we have on, the clothes we are wearing, clearly identifies our allegiance. Our clothing reflects our identity as Broncos supporters. We wear our jerseys proudly, and we join with other maroon jersey-wearing Broncos fans for each home game.
Ephesians 4:22–24 (NIV) tells us:
“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
When we become part of the Kingdom of God, we take off our old self, our old identity and allegiance, and put on our new self. We put on the new team colours. We take on the identity of our Lord and Saviour; we become a new creation.
I admit that I haven’t always worn my identity in Christ loudly and proudly. I haven’t always wanted to stand out from the crowd. Being different can be hard. Being the only Christian in a group can be isolating. We can attract ridicule, and we can be misunderstood for our beliefs. But God doesn’t call us to be incognito Christians. God wants us to put on our new identity and take our place in the Kingdom. We are created to be like God in righteousness and holiness, not to fit in with everyone around us.
What does the team jersey of the Kingdom of God look like? What are the team colours?
Love.
John 13:35 (NIV) says:
“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Our team colour is love. We stand, shoulder to shoulder with other disciples, and love one another outrageously. That is how the world will know our identity as Christ followers—by the way we love.
When we are hurt and taken advantage of, we love.
When we are misunderstood and falsely accused, we love.
When we see people in need, lonely and outcast, we love.
And when they don’t deserve it, we love them anyway.
Jesus told a story to illustrate how we should love our neighbor. We know it as the parable of the Good Samaritan.
A Samaritan man came across a man who had been robbed, beaten and left for dead by the side of the road. And, unlike the priest and the Levite who passed him by, the Samaritan stopped, cared for the man’s wounds, took him to safety and paid the expenses for his care.
This is what love looks like. It’s inconvenient, it’s messy, time-consuming and expensive. And it makes us stick out from the crowd. Like wearing a Broncos jersey in a crowd, no one can mistake where our allegiance lies. We take off our old selfish nature, and we put on the identity of Christ. We put on love.
Have you taken off your old identity and put on your new identity in Christ?
Who is God calling you to love? How can you show your identity as a Christ follower by loving someone outrageously today?
Thank you for this post. As a non Christian person who can truly dig the man who was Jesus, I appreciate your non judgmental approach to addressing the daily frictions we all face, which keep us from being better versions of ourselves.