Slap a Bible Verse on it!

Some of you know my obsession with trains.  Well, I was looking at an old Trains magazine from the 1970s (I bought some old ones) and saw this locomotive with a Bible verse on it as the loco's number.  It was J33-3, which stands for Jeremiah 33:3. 

The verse reads:
"Call to me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things that you do not yet know."

The railroad started in 1972.  Well, two years later...it closed. 

Part of me is impressed that whoever owned the railroad had a relationship with God that was important enough to slap a Bible verse on an engine.

The other part of me goes: this is what we Christians do all the time.

We slap a Bible verse on it.

We put them on our Christian school sports team shirts. 
We put them on our newsletters.
We make sure our holiday cards have one.
We slap them on our cars (or use a fish symbol).

The list goes on.

It's certainly not a bad thing, but does it really mean anything? 

I'm pretty sure nobody's life changed because of a Bible verse I wore on my T-shirt in high school.  Trust me; I wore plenty of them.

Instead, I hope people saw what my journey with God was doing to how I lived my life.  I was far from perfect, but I hope others were curious about me and my faith because the Holy Spirit was teaching me patience, gentleness, boldness, and kindness. 

Sometimes I think that many of us (like me in junior high) are just wearing shirts with Bible verses like Jesus said the Pharisees were "white-washed tombs."  We look good outside, but there's nothing really alive spiritually inside of us.

I'd rather live the heart of the Bible, than be a shell of a Christian with a Bible verse on my shirt.