The 2024-2025 NFL football season has officially begun; the games from this point forward count. And I love the “team” part of it. I enjoy watching any team that is playing like a team with each member bringing their gifts to the play. I love it when the seemingly impossible unfolds because everyone gave all they had in those few seconds of play because they shared a purpose. I love it when the sound in the stadium is deafening as the fans cheer on their team. And I wonder how to bring that spirit, that courage, that desire to serve using one’s gifts, that sharing of mission and purpose to our journeys every day.
I’ve actually thought about this a lot. I think of Christ, and I remember His words in John 15:
“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing… If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want, and it will be done for you. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, He may give you. This I command you: love one another.”
Jesus showed us the way. Jesus is “the Way.” Jesus taught us the truth. Jesus is “the Truth.” Jesus calls us to life. Jesus is “the Life.” If we truly and authentically pick up our identities as His disciples, if we seek daily to follow His teachings and His example, and if we love as He calls us to love, we will share a purpose, we will share a mission, Christ’s ongoing mission. We will be a team that will be capable of doing the seemingly impossible because of our faith, our hope, our love, our LORD’s power and presence within us through the Spirit.
What if we looked at our communities and considered this the beginning of “the season” in which we manifest Christ and Christ’s love, in which we bring Christ to others and others to Christ through our community efforts, our team efforts. What if every one of us brought our gifts and our talents and offered them in service to our LORD and to our sisters and brothers. What if?
Will you consider it with me? Will you consider what can be done when we all pick up our “uniforms” and put on Christ? Will you consider what we can do when love is our motive and our modus operandi? Will you consider how our living Christ might urge others to do the same? Will you consider? Tis the season.
Until tomorrow, let us all love well.
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