Phil 3: 7But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8What is more, I consider everything loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ
The clock is ticking. Last night I "took it down" at 915pm and God woke me up at 330am to spend 2.5 hours with Him this morning before my Coaches Bible study. My beloved Phillies were playing and I shut it down? Am I a Jesus freak? I remember the days when I would have given preference to baseball or any sport over Jesus.
Sports challenge our ability to walk in the footsteps of the Apostle Paul who recommended considering everything loss that we may gain Christ. As we evaluate our days we might see we pursued performance, pursued sports on TV, pursued our fantasy team, pursued internet, pursued pornography, and pursued texting. I remember when I used to watch the same Sports Center two or three times to see if I missed anything.
So often we fail to pursue Jesus in the Word or in prayer. Is Jesus garbage? How can we gain Christ and be found in Him with all of our habits and pursuits?
It is amazing within Christian circles and churches how we have justified "fantasy" leagues and sports pools like March Madness. We can invest too much time in worshiping our "fantasy team" and too much time following our picks in a free basketball pool. If the pools and leagues are free that makes it ok to spend hours preparing and following our teams right? As long as I waste Jesus time on preparing and reviewing my fantasy team with Christians it makes it ok right?
Of course only 5% of Christians share their faith and only 1% of Christians make disciples (McDowell), because we do not have time to gain Christ and be found. Jesus is too often garbage, loss not gain. In our neighborhood we typically take our garbage out one day a week. Are "Christians" throwing Jesus in the garbage daily?
We need to take a close look at our garbage and recycle Jesus. He wants to make something beautiful of our lives. The original disciples were ordinary people that had been with Jesus. We would rather be with garbage.
Make it a great day!
Does that mean I have to shut my 500 cable channels down?
Posted on
Thu, November 5, 2009