Are You Ready For Game Day?

Well sports fans, the full array of athletic competition has been rolled out like a red carpet that leads to the stage of glory.

First there is football…

America’s love affair with the men (and occasionally women) who compete on the gridiron is undeniable. There are husbands who literally tell there wives that they will see them in January when all the High School, NCAA and NFL championships are done. There are fans who paint their bodies and act in ways that are certifiably insane, unless of course they are done in honor of their team.

Then on the middle and high school campus, athletes are disciplining themselves to be the best of the best. Soccer and Tennis and Cross Country contests (to name a few) are happening in every city and county in the country, where athletes taste the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

Whether you’re a starter, a benchwarmer, a bleacher bum, or you despise all sports hands down, there is a huge lesson we can take away from the obsession with sports that plays out in our culture—

If we treated the Christian life like a sport, we would all be more effective in loving and serving Jesus.

That’s what the Apostle Paul thought anyway, and can’t you just imagine him sporting an authentic jersey or doing the wave with the Greeks during the ancient Olympics? That’s why he challenges us with these words:

We all know that when there’s a race, all the runners bolt for the finish line, but only one will take the prize. When you run, run for the prize! Athletes in training are very strict with themselves,exercising self-control over desires, and for what? For a wreath that soon withers or is crushed or simply forgotten. That is not our race. We run for the crown that we will wear for eternity. So I don’t run aimlessly. I don’t let my eyes drift off the finish line. When I box, I don’t throw punches in the air. I discipline my body and make it my slave so that after all this, after I have brought the gospel to others, I will still be qualified to win the prize (1 Corinthians 9:24-27).

Paul saw the Christian life in terms of athletic competition in two distinct ways. First, he realized that following Jesus is a competition for a prize that will last forever. To win it, we must remember that we compete against ourselves and the enemy. When we forget that, we may end up just barely crossing the finish line or even worse— disqualified—which means we don’t receive the wreath of victory. To be victorious, we must long to hear “well done, good and faithful servant” from Jesus Christ on Judgment Day as He places a victory wreath around our neck.

The athletes who were victorious in Paul’s day took a vow to train for 10 months and deny themselves anything that would get in the way of winning. Sadly, I feel like Christians today wouldn’t give up 10 minutes a day to study God’s Word, pray and share the gospel with others.

Paul also made the comparison of treating the Christian life like a training schedule. He wanted to make every “punch” count, and he woke up every morning with the determination to not let his physical body rule over his spiritual calling to “deny himself and take up his cross” (Luke 9:23).

The bottom line here is that we need to start looking at our commitment to Christ like a race and like a fight. We are racing against time and our sin nature to receive the prize from Jesus, and we are in a competition for the very souls of our friends and family.

So would you start considering yourself to be a spiritual athlete? If you and I want to see people trust Christ and THE Cause go forward, we must enter into the kind of spiritual training that makes pro athletes look like lazy couch potatoes by comparison.

Start tomorrow by getting up 10 minutes earlier to talk to Jesus about your day. Deny yourself the temptation to post a status update or tweet for the 57th time today so you can check in on the love letter God sent you in the pages of the Bible. And when the enemy tries to tackle you as you attempt to score a goal for THE Cause, straight-arm him in the face with the strength that comes from living in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Know that one day we will all give an account to The Judge for the race that we ran for Him. Visualize standing before Christ for your life recap and performance review—that should highly motivate you to run the very best race you possibly can!

But most importantly, when you consider all that Jesus has done for you, how can you do anything
less than give Him your all? Let your love for Christ drive you to great levels of discipline and focus which will lead to spiritual victories for His glory and His kingdom!

Finding Your Strength In Adversity

There is a story of little girl in church with too much energy. She kept standing up on the chair and her mother kept pulling her down, but she would just keep getting right back up. Frustrated, her mother pulled her down again and put her hand heavy on her little girls head, pushing her down into a sitting position. The little girl sat there for a while, then began to smile. Then she said, “Mom, you know what, I may be sitting down on the outside, but I am standing up on the inside!”

This is the attitude of knowing there is a strength within me that knows nothing can keep me down, and that there is a Presence and Power in my life, God the Good, so I know I will stand up at the right appointed time.

It is not always easy to keep the faith. In this world, there are many challenges, that many of us face everyday of our lives. I know these spiritual teachings that we offer are wonderful, but when life shows up with all its distressing disguises, we sometimes can forget who we are.

When life pushes us down, are we standing up on the inside? Or do we let it bring us down? Are we beginning to believe in the voices outside ourselves that we are not enough? Are we beginning to believe in the illusion of lack and limitation or scarcity? (Scare City)

Right now, is there something in your life keeping you down!? In Unity, there is always hope for a better tomorrow, and a new way of seeing things. With God on our side (and God is on the side of all human beings), all things are possible.

After much hardship, how does one find the inner strength to continue the journey? Most of us cannot imagine what it takes, in one’s self, when you’re expecting an end to the difficult journey and instead are faced with the Rocky Mountains. Where does one go in that moment to be willing to be present to what is, rather than what one wanted?

I do not know what Rocky Mountains you are facing right now, but I know they come in many different forms. Perhaps it’s a diagnosis of illness or a difficult relationship. Maybe your mountain is a lost dream, or you have poured your heart out into a business and success still eludes, or you face a mountain of betrayal. Rocky Mountains come in all different shapes and forms. In this human journey, it is not a matter of if we will face the mountain it is a matter of when.

Like those who have scaled great peaks around the world attest, it is in that climb that we feel connected to something greater than we are. Regardless of how it turns out, this Presence is bigger than the thing we are facing, and we begin to find strength through the adversity.

When we are faced with an adversity, we can refuse to believe that there is anything against us, just shake it off, and step to higher ground. God is not finished with us yet. And remember, that a set back is just a set up for a come back! Something greater is about to happen. Just like the dream that is in your heart. Are you ready for that dream to be realized?

Sometimes the Universe pulls the rug out from under you, because you need to be standing on more solid ground. You need to get off the slippery slope of someone else’s dream and get on the solid ground of your own dream.

What I know to be true, is that we are all connected to something that regardless of how it turns out, is bigger than the Rocky Mountains we are facing. If we keep our minds focused on God and the Dream, we can shake off all adversity and stay aligned with truth and remain standing up on the inside. We can never be diminished from someone’s opinion of us, and our sense of self grows with our own ability to recognize the Spirit who knows us as it’s own.

Jesus said, there will be many trials and tribulations, but be of good cheer, have a good attitude, for I have overcome!

We have to be ready for adversity. Not look for it—no, not expect it—but be ready when we are knocked over, when we feel the dirt coming down on our backs to shake it off and remember the power of God is within us from on high and, step up onto higher ground of new possibility.

Can You Sleep Through The Storm?

Years ago a farmer owned land along the Atlantic seacoast. He constantly advertised for hired hands. Most people were reluctant to work on farms along the Atlantic. They dreaded the awful storms that raged across the Atlantic, wreaking havoc on the buildings and crops.

As the farmer interviewed applicants for the job, he received a steady stream of refusals. Finally, a short, thin man, well past middle age, approached the farmer. "Are you a good farmhand?" the farmer asked him.

"Well, I can sleep when the wind blows," answered the little man.

Although puzzled by this answer, the farmer, desperate for help, hired him. The little man worked well around the farm, busy from dawn to dusk, and the farmer felt satisfied with the man's work.

Then one night the wind howled loudly in from offshore. Jumping out of bed, the farmer grabbed a lantern and rushed next door to the hired hand's sleeping quarters. He shook the little man and yelled, "Get up! A storm is coming! Tie things down before they blow away!"

The little man rolled over in bed and said firmly, "No sir. I told you, I can sleep when the wind blows."

Enraged by the old man's response, the farmer was tempted to fire him on the spot. Instead, he hurried outside to prepare for the storm. To his amazement, he discovered that all of the haystacks had been covered with tarpaulins. The cows were in the barn, the chickens were in the coops, and the doors were barred. The shutters were tightly secured. Everything was tied down. Nothing could blow away. The farmer then understood what his hired hand meant, and he returned to bed to also sleep while the wind blew.

Where to take it from here...

When you're prepared, you have nothing to fear. Can you sleep when the wind blows through your life? The hired hand in the story was able to sleep because he had secured the farm against the storm. We secure ourselves against the storms of life by grounding ourselves firmly in the Word of God. 

By Wayne Rice 

The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him.. Nahum 1:7

What Does Your Letter Say?

Have you ever wanted to write a letter to God? If you sat down right now to compose a message to the Creator of the universe, what would you say?

I think most would go with the whole series of "why?" questions...why me God? Why did my parents divorce? Why am I depressed a lot? Why did you make me this way? Why are things turning out like this?

Valid questions to be sure - and also ones that God is not threatened or angered by. Life is sometimes plain and simple awful, and it is human nature to point our finger at the sky and blame the One in charge - right?

That is certainly something Tyler Doherty could have done, and no one would have blamed him.

Who is Tyler Doherty? Well that's not his real name, but he is a real 8 year old boy who went from an easy going, soccer playing childhood to the darkest journey anyone could ever face when one simple word entered his world:

Cancer

In the process of his battle with this deadly disease, Tyler had to quit his beloved sport, lose his hair and eyebrows, and face a daily battle with a reality that could crush the spirit of anyone on the planet.

But Tyler had an unshakeable relationship with God...a childlike faith that turned his pain and discouragement into a community transformation. That's why the letters he writes to God are not about the "why," or even about him. Tyler writes to God about other people and their problems, and in turn becomes a living letter from God to everyone around him.

And now his story has the chance to transform - not hundreds - but literally millions of lives through the movie Letters to God.

I can't say if I would have the faith that Tyler had when facing a giant of that size, but one thing I have in common with him is that I, too, am a living letter from God to the people around me.

And if you have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, this statement is true about you:

Your lives are a letter written in our hearts; everyone can read it and recognize our good work among you. Clearly, you are a letter from Christ showing the result of our ministry among you. This "letter" is written not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. It is carved not on tablets of stone, but on human hearts (2 Corinthians 2:2-3).

This truth formed the foundation of Tyler 's outlook on life. He wrote pen and ink letters to God on behalf of others, and in turn God used him to be a beating heart letter from Jesus Christ. His deepest wish was that the sad, hurting, and broken people in his world would come to know God.

We've been granted an unbelievable opportunity - haven't we? Every day God is texting the world through our eyes, our words, our attitudes, and our actions. The ink from our hearts bleeds onto the paper of our world, painting a picture of Jesus Christ.

So what kind of living letter are you? The answer to this question can be found in another question:

What kind of letters are you writing to God?

Your prayers are your letters, so if they are generally composed of complaints, questions, and self-focused requests, then that is the kind of God the people around you will see.

How about we all start a new letter writing campaign? One that asks God to touch lives and heal the pain in our corner of the world. One that begs God for the salvation of our friends who don't know Him because they haven't trusted in Jesus Christ as their only hope of salvation.

Let me start this campaign with a letter from God that changed me to the core of my being:

He was pierced for our rebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.
All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God's paths to follow our own.
Yet the L ord laid on him
the sins of us all (Isaiah 53:5-6).

Remember, the ink that God is using to write His message to the world through you was paid for with the blood of Jesus Christ on the cross. Don't waste this precious gift with selfish and self-centered prayers and living, rather make each day a magnificent composition to your Savior, then watch Him write His message of unconditional love and salvation to everyone around you!

Ask your friends what they would put in a letter to God. Would they ask questions? Would they question His goodness? Or would they be more like Tyler and praise God for the life they've been given? Pray for an opportunity to talk about the Biblical description of Christians as "living letters"' from God, telling the world about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).

Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:15-17).

Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life-in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing (Philippians 2:14-16).

Source: Dare2Share.org (Used by Permission)

The Bouquet

For some time I've had a church member provide me with a rose boutonniere to pin on the lapel of my suit every Sunday. Because I always got a flower on Sunday morning, I really did not think much of it. It was a nice gesture that became routine. 

One Sunday, however, what I considered ordinary became very special. As I was leaving the Sunday service a young man approached and said, "Sir, what are you going to do with your flower?" At first I did not know what he was talking about, but then I understood. I said, "Do you mean this?" as I pointed to the rose pinned to my coat. He said, "Yes sir. I would like it if you are just going to throw it away." The little boy said, "Sir, I'm going to give it to my granny. My mother and father got divorced last year. I was living with my mother, but I could not stay, so she sent me to live with my grandmother. She has been so good to me that I want to give that pretty flower to her for loving me." 

When the little boy finished I could hardly speak. My eyes filled with tears and I knew I had been touched in the depths of my soul. I reached up and unpinned my flower. With the flower in my hand, I looked at the boy and said, "Son, that is the nicest thing I have ever heard, but you can't have this flower because it's not enough. If you'll look in front of the pulpit, you'll see a big bouquet of flowers. Different families buy them for the church each week. Please take those flowers to your granny because she deserves the very best." 

If I hadn't been touched enough already, he made one last statement and I will always cherish it. He said, "What a wonderful day! I asked for one flower but got a beautiful bouquet."

In fact, God treats us with even greater kindness, just as the Scriptures says:

“God opposes everyone

who is proud,

but he is kind to everyone

who is humble.”

James 4:6

You've Got Mail

Teach me to do your will for you are my God. May your gracious Spirit lead me forward on a firm footing. Psalm 143:10 

Have you ever wondered what is God's will in your life? Don't you wish He would just send it in the mail to eliminate any confusion? It's worth pointing out that David didn't ask the same thing. Instead, he asks for God to teach him to do His will. Imagine if you learned to do God's will how the uncertainty would be eliminated. Let's allow the Spirit to lead us on solid ground by asking God to teach us.