Read:
Every year, one or more football players are traded to another team. Imagine San Francisco trades their wide receiver to Buffalo—a red and gold jersey for a red and blue one. He moves across the country, practices with his new teammates, and then, on the night of the first game, runs out on the field wearing his old red and gold uniform.
Wouldn’t happen, right? He’s not on that team anymore.
When we’re changed by Christ, it’s a bit like that—we’ve changed teams. Paul wrote to the Colossians, “You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions.” Not anymore! Christ died for our sins, and “as a result, he has brought you into his own presence.”
Now that we are changed by Christ, Paul tells us to take off the old uniform and put on the new one: “Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him.”
The old nature is focused on earthly things—money, power, momentary pleasure, and whatever makes “me” happy. But now: “Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth.”
What matters to God? Loving him. Loving others. Introducing people to Jesus. Caring for those who can’t care for themselves. Fighting for justice.
It's a shift from thinking mostly of ourselves to living for others. But that’s the team we’re on now. Let’s wear that uniform with pride, to make God’s love easy to see.
Pray: Dear God, thank you for bringing out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of light. Help me to live with your love in focus, so that I can love as Jesus loved. Amen.