“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to
offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and
proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what
God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:1-2
All this talk about baseball we have been doing
on Sunday mornings and with my fantasy baseball teams drafted and now the
weather is warming I got anxious to see when opening day is for Major League
Baseball. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the MLB season opens March 31st!
I have no idea how good the Nationals will be or
how much improvement by Chicago Cubs will show, but I know this – on opening
day there will be batters coming to home plate and running the bases in the
right order. No one will even thing of running the bases backward.
When game time arrives on March 31st
and the first pitch is thrown all the attention will be focused on home plate.
Does anyone doubt that?
On that day, as well as today and each day in
between your focus should be fully trained on home plate, your connecting point
with the God of your salvation!
In your spiritual relationship with Christ every
day is opening day! Every day you must come to the plate to reconnect with
fresh grace, fresh power, fresh peace, fresh purpose, fresh hope, fresh joy,
and fresh presence! Yesterday’s connection was sweet but it is stale. You don’t
want to come to today’s challenges in yesterday’s experience.
It’s nice to remember that first time you came to
the plate and how thrilling that initial connection with Christ was! And it is
wonderful to reflect on those bygone days when to connected on the sweet spot
with Jesus and took it deep! But those blessings won’t do anything for you
today.
None of us know when our last trip to the plate
will be but there will be one. And you can’t say for certain that day won’t be
today. Would you want to be depending on past connections that last time you
step to the plate?
Me neither.
Imagine coming to the plate today and making a
solid connection with God that is so real and so pure and so satisfying that
you just have to wait for a moment before heading up the first base line!
Imagine doing that again tomorrow and the say
after that until the last trip to the plate when your faith connection becomes
sight!
Imagine becoming like Him as you see Him as He
is!
If you like those images and find them inspiring,
head to home plate and renew your connection with Christ! He is waiting to
connect with you!