Sunday, September 20, 2015

September 20, 2015

"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates." Deuteronomy 6:4-9

I remember the first times that I stepped up to the plate in baseball in high school and in college. I also happen to remember the last time I stepped to the plate in college.

Those are significant times in the life of a serious-minded baseball play so you tend to remember them. Each of those three times I stepped to the plate I connected with the baseball.

Actually, my first trip to the plate in high school the ball connected with me! The pitch broke in and hit me on the knuckles of my left hand. It really hurt but I figured since I got hit by a pitch I would get to go to first base, at least. But I didn't. The umpire ruled that since the ball hit my hand and my hand was considered part of the ball and so he called it a foul ball. So rather than getting to first base I was back in the batter's box with a one strike count and a couple of sore swollen knuckles.

The other two trips to the plate were memorable in more pleasant ways. Both time that I stepped to the place I connected with the ball and drove in runs with each hit.

I had been well prepared to step to the plate in each of those occasions because of all the times I had spent stepping to the plate in hitting practice under the instruction of coaches who knew about hitting.

In comparing Baseball to the growth pattern of a Christian, home plate is where winning begins and ends. Home plate, in this analogy is where you make your personal spiritual connection with God! It would be where you meet with God and He meets with you.

You need to know how to connect with God at home plate so you can teach your kid how to step up to the plate and connect with God. Connecting with God at home plate is where everything begins. Nothing happens until you step up to the plate and connect. The same is true spiritually.


How do you step up to the plate?


"If we confess your sins He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." I John 1:9


"For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16


"I urge you brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer yourselves as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you will be able to know the good and perfect will of God." Romans 12:1-2 


God is waiting to connect with you. 


Do you need to connect with Him?


Do you need to reconnect?


Will you step up to the plate?


Will you confess your sins, turn from them and receive His salvation?