Monday, March 2, 2015

March 3, 2015

"Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing."  John 15:4-5

You don't have to be a baseball player as I was to know that the main reason people play baseball is because they love to hit the ball.

Unless you are a pitcher or a catcher and involved in every play, being on defense can be boring. It is possible to play a position in the field and not have a ball hit to you during the entire game! But everyone in the lineup gets to bat three or four times.

Most Major League ballparks hold 40,000 to 50,000 fans who come to the park not to see position players field balls or pitchers throw balls they come to see hitters hit. Excitement swells and the crowd rises at the sound of bat connecting with baseball!

Connecting with the ball IS a great feeling! It is also a sweet sound to hear the crack of the bat when it connects with the ball! And to get a chance to hit the ball you must get up to home plate. 

In the game of baseball connecting with the ball is an acquired skill. It takes hours of batting practice and proper instruction to learn to make consistent contact at the plate. Some are never learn to hit. But in the Home Run life, anyone who wants to step up to the plate can connect with God!

Everything in baseball begins and ends at home plate! 

So it is in the Home Run life! Everything in your spiritual life begins and ends when you connect with God. That connecting point of faith represents home plate!

A couple of thousand years before Abner Doubleday invented baseball, Jesus illustrated the necessity of connecting with God referring to a vine and its branches. Just as a branch depends on its connection with the vine to draw its life, so you depend on your faith connection with God to give you spiritual life.

The branch is dead without a connection to the vine and the game doesn't start until there is a connection at the plate.

Whether you use the baseball analogy or the vine, Jesus is clear "apart from me you can do nothing".