| Author | Message | ||
| Ric_b Registered user Username: Ric_b Post Number: 2091 Registered: 7-2004  |
I’m not very good, but I love doing it. I have a long list of activities about which I can say this: playing trumpet, hunting antelope, playing basketball, barbecuing steak. Well, no, I’m pretty good at barbecuing steak. Still, I immensely enjoy doing many things, even though my level of expertise is pretty pedestrian. I play basketball a couple of times a week, more if my body allows it. I’m not very good. I’m not that tall, can’t jump, and, born slow, I’m getting slower every year. I set a pretty good screen, and can shoot a little, most of the time, unless it’s a contested lay-in, which I’m sure to miss, along with a fair percentage of uncontested gimmes. And yet, despite my limited skills, I absolutely love playing, because I’m not worried about how good I am. If I can make a pass or set a screen, drag myself up and down the floor, and not get injured, I go home a very happy guy. It wasn’t always this way for me. I’ve always loved basketball, but as a teenager, my enjoyment was clouded by a desperate desire to prove myself, to make the team, to maybe even be a major contributor. Which, given the limitations I detailed above, was problematic. I worked hard, but never shined, and gave up basketball after my sophomore year, when my efforts to prove my worth were contradicted by a coaching staff that perhaps had a more objective perspective. Make me, a sophomore, play C-Squad, with freshmen? I’ll show you. I won’t play anymore. Thankfully, I got over it. In God’s providence, He got me to the other side of youthful pipe dreams, and my ego. I remembered that I just love to play, even more now that I don’t have unrealistic expectations. Just to be in the game, even an early morning game of relatively low quality, is a great joy. I’m not very good, but I love doing it. My experience with basketball is a useful frame for us to use in considering freedom and joy in the Christian life. You, Christian, are a sinner. You see the example that Jesus lived, and because of your gratitude for His self-sacrificing love, poured out for you on the Cross, you want to live like a child of God should. But you’re not very good at it. You cannot free yourself from sin. It’s easy to start pressing, thinking that your worth as a Christian depends on how good you can live. But that is a lie of the devil. Your worth as a Christian depends on Christ, who died and rose, for you. In Him, you are free, your inheritance in God’s Kingdom is guaranteed. And so, free in Christ forever, you are also free to live, today. The Good News that your standing with God doesn’t depend on your works frees you to try to live as a Christian, without fear, freeing you to live joyfully, because Jesus is your Savior, and that makes you a winner, forever. http://www.sidneyherald.com/community/religion/the-freedom-joy-of-gospel/article_28ed6f10-8564-11e3-9af7-001a4bcf887a.html | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 14710 Registered: 12-2003  |
Rick, thank you. This is good! What an amazing truth that we are sinners forever when we are in Christ! Colleen | ||
| Rioranchoprays Registered user Username: Rioranchoprays Post Number: 7 Registered: 3-2014 |
Nice analogy. Someone once said, nothing you do can make God love you any more than he does right now. And nothing you do can make God love you any less. God loves us because, well he just does! I love your last point that we are free in Christ! Free to live as his child, and free to live joyfully, because Jesus is our Saviour and in him we are a winner, forever. |
