At first, this article was supposed to be about what it means to be a Christian athlete, from the perspective of someone who attended and played sports at a small Christian school, and how having the word, "Christian" on your jersey should affect how you play. However, the more I thought about this, the more I realized that if you are a Christian, and you have proclaimed so publically, (through words, actions, etc.) you don't ever get to take your jersey off. Your jersey shouldn't just affect how you play, it should affect how you live.

It's kind of like when you work for a company, and you have to abide by their codes of conduct, otherwise you could get fired. Let's say you don't get fired from your job, but you still haven't been providing the best customer service; maybe you've been just plain rude to your customers. You might not get fired, but you might cost your company some business-- you might leave such a bad, lasting impression on those customers that they would never even consider giving your company business again.

Now, once you're in the kingdom of God, you can't really be "fired" from it. But, you could lose the Kingdom some "customers." Whether you realize it or not, once others are aware that you are a Christian, they're only going to view you with that Christian Jersey on. If you do something that others know someone with your jersey on shouldn't be doing, they're going to judge you; you will be a hypocrite in their eyes, and who wants to be on the same team as a hypocrite? The same thing goes for lying, cheating, stealing, and so on. Who wants to be on the same team as hypocritical liars, stealers, and cheaters?

Of course, nobody is perfect, and we won't always wear our jersey the right way. But we can at least try, and when we fail, pray for God to fix the mess we've made.

What if you are the first (or the only) Christian someone runs into, and they don't know anything about Jesus, and the overwhelming hope, peace, and forgiveness He emanates? You may have heard the saying, "You could be the only Bible that someone comes into contact with." Well, the same concept applies here. Technically, you could be the reason someone decides to join the team or the reason someone decides they want nothing to do with your team.

Whenever anything happens, we, as Christians, are usually the first group of people put in the spotlight, or the first group of people that others look to/at. This is both for encouragement and hope, and to judge us on whether or not we're behaving "Christian-like."

This is a lot of pressure to bear in a high-stakes (high-rewards) game, but isn't that what we're gearing up for when we put on our jersey?