Christians should be obvious about their allegiance

Whose side are they on, anyway?

We debated this for hours. Guessing the loyalty of fans sitting next to us last Saturday became an amusing subplot as our family watched the Washington State University Cougars lose to the UCLA Bruins in Pullman.

We sat in an end zone interspersed with fans of both football teams. Most of us proudly displayed our true colors, but not the folks sitting to our immediate right.

They seemed equally enthused when either team did well and studied both team rosters with similar curiosity.

I figured I had outed one of them as a Cougar fan when I saw the logo of a Washington trade group on his coat. That is, until my wife pointed out that the jacket was a perfect match to the baby blue worn by conspicuous Bruin fans.

So we spent the afternoon cheering the Cougars and waiting for our bench mates to betray their true allegiance.

They never did.

Many Christians are just like those fans, afraid to be too “out there” in a world that is more and more frequently opposed to the things of God.

This is nothing new. Even in the Old Testament, we read of God’s desire for his people to be distinct, and their reluctance to do so.

Joshua warned the nation Israel that a lifestyle of duplicity wasn’t God’s way. Claiming to love God while at the same time embracing the pagan cultures around them was an intolerably mixed allegiance. “… Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15 – NKJV).

Hundreds of years later, God’s people still struggled to be set apart from the world.

The prophet Elijah once lamented that he was the only remaining man who feared God in all of Israel. The Lord surprised Elijah, revealing that 7,000 people “whose knees have not bowed to Baal” had been reserved in Israel (1 Kings 19:18).

However encouraging, God’s revelation also begged some practical questions: Where had those 7,000 faithful people been hiding? Why was their presence not obvious to Elijah? Why did they blend in so well with the culture?

One reason God’s people don’t stand out more is that we have simply become too comfortable in the world. I see this in the life of the man in the mirror more often than I’d like.

When we become too entangled in worldly things, our witness for the Lord can be blurred.

Such a lifestyle defies the Bible’s salient truth: Life is not about us; it’s about God. Any good that Christians do is not for our benefit primarily but to draw others to God.

Jesus told his disciples that a godly life sends a convincing message to the world about his power to save people and transform them: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

The Bible says that in the end times, God still will be calling his people to lives of humble distinction, lives of separation from the world: “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins….” (Revelation 18:4).

The future culture we read of in Revelation seems alarmingly similar to the one we live in today.

People will lust for material and sensual pleasure, even at the expense of others. And that lifestyle will be gift-wrapped in a false religion that satiates man’s desire for pretend piety.

It’s interesting to me that the sins of self-indulgence, pride and self-sufficiency so often grow out of things that are not inherently bad.

There’s nothing right or wrong about material things; they’re just things!

There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a sense of accomplishment, even when it draws attention to us. In fact, the Scriptures tell us to go about our pursuits with excellence.

So how do we know when we’ve crossed that line between godliness and selfishness?

Oswald Chambers puts it this way in his book “My Utmost for His Highest”: “The key to … devotion means being attached to nothing and to no one saving Our Lord Himself, not being detached from things externally.”

It does us very little good to eschew the things of the world unless at the same time we are pursuing more of Christ. When Jesus and the life that he has called us to are the driving motive for our lives, all the other “stuff” falls into its proper place.

Duplicity, compromise and ambiguity in our lives are defeated as Christians live with bold attachment to Jesus.

I pray that we will gladly put on the colors of Christ, even when they contrast sharply with those worn by the rest of the world. That contrast won’t leave others wondering whose side we’re on.