Recently I watched a documentary on the Seattle Grunge music scene in the 90s.
One of the things that stood out to me was the flannel shirts.
Now Seattle is known for rainy weather. I know this firsthand as I lived there for a year.
A year was as much as I could take of that!
So these musicians were wearing flannel shirts, not as any kind of statement, but just because that is what they wore. It's warm!
After the music took off and became more mainstream, the "Seattle look" was also being marketed. along with the music. One musician, interviewed for the documentary, thought it was very amusing that people were paying $80 for a shirt to look like people who paid $5 for theirs.
Basically people are willing to pay a high price just to look the part.
Being the real thing cannot be bought or manufactured by just wearing certain clothes. Either you play music or you don't. In fact, the music had little if anything, to do with the clothing.
The same could be said for our walk with the Lord. It's easy to go to church, buy Christian T-shirts and bumper stickers, or even post Christian slogans on our Facebook pages.
It's something else entirely for our life to reflect the reality of who we are.
"Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.
Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1: 22-27 NIV
