February 22, 2015

"I am come that you may have life and have it abundantly." John 10:10

Everyone wants to enjoy a Home Run life.

That means everyone wants success, someone, self-respect and significance.

Significance comes when you connect with God at home plate. That happens when you win dependence on God.

Spiritual growth is counter-intuitive to human development. You began your life full dependent upon your parents. But as you grew into your adolescent and young adult years your parents allowed you to become increasingly independent. However, as a Christian, God wants you to repent of your independence and become fully dependent upon Him. That is winning dependence.

Winning dependence on God and finding significance allows you to advance to first base. At first base the win is within.

First base is the character base where your dependence upon God begins to shape your character and be reflected in your conduct. Winning within results in self-respect.

Finding significance and self-respect prepares you to move to second base where you can begin learning how win with others.

You were never intended to live life alone. God created you with a need for Him but He also wired you to need others. So just as you need to learn live in relationship with God you must also learn to connect with others.

Winning dependence in God at home plate, and winning within at first base, and winning with others prepares you to move on to third base.

Third base is the success base where you learn to win results.

Having rounded the bases you can head home with greater significance.

That's the Home Run life! That's the life that wins!

February 21, 2015

"I am come that you might have life and have it abundantly." John 10:10

We have identified four felt needs everyone wants to have met. Let's integrate those into our baseball scenario.

Let's relate the need for significance with home plate since it is the most significant of all the bases. Everything in baseball begins and ends at home plate. Home plate is were a batter goes to connect with the ball. Home plate is where a runner has to cross in order to score a run. Nothing significant happens in a baseball game unless a connection happens at home plate. Game after game and season after season the connections must continue to happen.

Spiritually, everything begins when you connect with God. Nothing significant can happen until you connect with Him through faith in Christ. That spiritual faith connection must continue day after day for your life to have significance.

In baseball when you connect with the ball you run to first base. You can't score on first base but neither can you score without getting to first base. Connecting with the ball and arriving safely at first base is called a hit. It feels good to get a hit. If you get more hits than outs you will earn the respect of your manager and your team mates.

First base in our spiritual analogy is the Self-respect base. Developing a connection with God introduces His grace into your life along with His, peace and joy. Those supernatural changes alone will get you to first base in the development of your personal character.

When you get to second base in baseball you are halfway home. You can get home from second if a team mate gets a hit.

In terms of spiritual development, second base is the Someone base. Once you have connected with God and learned to respect yourself, it is time to learn to love others. Faith was never intended to be lived alone but in community with other believers. The connection you each have with God enables you to connect with each other.

Getting to third base means you are in the home stretch on the baseball diamond. It is a measure of success. Making it to third is the result of doing things right. You connected for a hit and advanced around the bases.

Spiritually, third base is the Success base. You have arrived there by developing learning to love God, love yourself and others. Those are the things God created you and called you to do! When you are successful in those crucial areas a lot of other good things happen. 

Rounding third gets you back to home plate for the score! 

In the spiritual sense, the score is finding greater significance by running the bases and playing the game God's way!

Each time you round the bases your relationships get richer and your respect grows and your results increase!

That is the Home Run life! That is the way that wins! That is what we will be studying between now and Easter!

Batter up!

February 20, 2015

"I am come that you might have life and have it abundantly." John 10:10

Success, someone, self-respect and significance are the four big needs that drive you. It doesn't matter if you are a person of faith, a person who is searching for faith or a person who has no use for faith those four needs still motivate you.

But if you are a Christ-follower, you will have those needs met by God according to His definition.

Significance for the believer is found in learning dependence on God. Spiritual maturity happens opposite of how human maturity does. When you grew from childhood you developed from total dependence on your parents, to interdependence with your parents and then to independence from them. That is healthy and normal growth and development.

But spiritual growth demands that you move from depending on yourself to fully depending on God! That is where you will find the significance that fully satisfies and shapes your being.

Finding significance and satisfaction in God is a huge step toward gaining self-respect. Living in dependence on God allows His grace to deal with what wrong in you and develop His good in you!

You cannot love what you don't respect and since the Great Commandment demands you to "love others as yourself" self-respect is necessary to enable you to love others.

Finding significance and self-respect in your relationship with God opens your heart for Him to love others through you! You were designed and created to share life with others. While there is a hole in your heart that only God can fill, there are also gaps that can only be filled through relationships with family members and friends.

The abundant life God intends for you includes significance found in Him, self-respect found because of Him, relationships with others through Him and success that is glorifying to Him. When you depend on God to help you get right with Him and with yourself and with others, you have found success in your relationships! Success in those three vital areas of relationship inevitably translates into success in other areas of life.

When Jesus announced that He came to give you life in abundance, this is what He is talking about - significance, self-respect, someone, and success!

Are you experiencing the abundance He promises?

Have you found the place of complete dependence on Him?

February 19, 2015

"I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly." John 10:10

I don't know anyone who doesn't want more out of life. I'm not sure I would want to know someone like that.

There are four things everyone wants from life; success, someone, self-respect and significance. Jesus came to make it possible for believers to enjoy those basic desires.

Every healthy well-adjusted person strives for success. Success is an indication of competence in a job or career. Success wins respect from others and brings opportunities for advancement. The opposite of success is failure and no one enjoys failing. 

Success begins with your relationship with God through Christ. Success starts when you connect with God and discover the purpose and power He has to give.

But success alone is not enough. Success is far more enjoyable when you can share it with someone else. In addition to success, everyone wants someone to love and be loved by.

The beginning of all healthy relationships is found in a personal relationship with God through Christ. He created you to know Him and to be known by Him. When He is your primary Someone, He is able to lead you into deep level friendships with other Christ-followers.

Discovering successful results and relationships develops the third important area of your life - self-respect! When you are winning in your personal pursuits and winning in your personal relationships your self-respect soars!

Finding success, and someone and self-respect brings you to the most important human need - significance! Your significance is the desire to matter and to make a difference in your world. Significance is formed by how much you matter to the most significant person in your life.

God says, "You matter so much to Me that I sent my Only Son to die for your sins!"

God says, "I sent Jesus to die for your sins because I greatly desire a relationship with you!"

God says, "Having a relationship with you is as important to Me as my relationship with my Son!"

How's that for significance?

When Jesus declared He came to give you life and give it abundantly, He means He wants to bring you success, someone, self-respect and significance! All of that and more is yours through a personal relationship with Christ!

Are you experiencing that abundant life?

If not, why not?

February 18, 2015

"I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly." John 10:10

In a few days the Big League pitchers and catchers will head to Florida and Arizona to begin Spring training in preparation for the coming Major League season.

What happens during Spring training is actually quite tedious and boring. During Spring training these millionaires and multi-millionaires who are some of the most gifted athletes on the planet spend hours per day doing throwing drills, and fielding drills and game situation drills over and over again. To get to this level of baseball these players have had to do these drills thousands of times but they gather at their respective training sites to do them over again. They will also do conditioning and running drills.

The reason these ballplayers will spend so much time focusing on fundamentals as they get ready for the season is because it is the executing the fundamentals that lead to winning baseball games. Especially, at the Major League level where the talent level is essentially the same it is the level of execution that make the difference between winning and losing. During the heat of competition in a regular season baseball game you don't want the players on your favorite Big League team thinking about what they need to do in a certain situation. Instead, you want your players to be so versed in fielding and throwing fundamentals that they react to the ball. Making plays on the field during a Major League game has to be instinctive.

While the Big Leaguers are heading off for Spring Training, the FredWes team will be heading in to our 40 Day Emphasis to work on the fundamentals of our spiritual walk with God. And this year we will be studying the "Home Run Life" that puts personal spiritual growth in terms of a baseball game:

Home plate is where everything begins and ends in a baseball game. A player steps up to home plate knowing he needs to connect with the ball in order to have a chance to score. For the Christian, everything begins with when you make a spiritual connection with God. So, for the Christian, home plate is where you connect with God to find your purpose and power for life!

First base is the goal of every batter who steps up to the plate. A player cannot score a run without getting to first base. In terms of Christian growth, first base is the place where you form your personal character. No follower of Christ can be successful without developing his personal honesty and integrity. And he can't develop his honesty and integrity until he connects with God.

Second base means a runner is halfway home! When a ball player gets to second base he is in "scoring position". For the believer, second base represents the development of connections with other people. It is essential for a Christian to understand how to live in community with other Christians. Jesus often emphasized that loving others is the evidence of God's love at work in you!

Third base is the base closest to scoring a run. If you can make it to third base your odds of scoring a run increase significantly. From third base you can score on a hit, an error, a passed ball, a walk or even a daring steal of home plate! In the Christian life, third base represents the competency base. It is the production base. It is the base where you can begin to see results. If you can connect with God and build Christ-like character and love others you will begin to see results that honor God! That is what happens at third base!

If a highly skilled professional baseball player needs to brush up on his basics before each season, why shouldn't those who follow Christ want to make sure they have a good connection with Christ and have all their bases covered?

Do you need to brush up on some Bible basics?

Are you ready to report for some spiritual Spring training?

February 17, 2015

"I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly." John 10:10

I was seven years old when I trusted Christ as my Savior.

I was eight years old when I first began to play organized baseball.

These two seemingly different pursuits became two of the great loves of my life. Each, in its own way has played a significant part in shaping my life.

One of these two came rather easily to me. The other has been a life-long challenge.

Hitting a baseball and catching a baseball and throwing a baseball just seemed to come naturally to me. Being a faithful follower of Christ was not nearly as natural. It has required energy, focus and effort for nearly six decades.

In baseball, if you get one hit in three times at bat during a game you will have a .333 batting average and that will get you labeled as a great hitter. There are a number of baseball players in the Hall of Fame who didn't have a .333 batting average for their career. If you live for Christ just one day out of three, you will be a poor Christian.

In baseball, if I made an error or struck out or grounded into a double play, when that game was over I could start with a fresh stat line in the next game! As a Christian, my sins and failures seemed to trouble me and haunt me despite God's grace.

Although I have often made analogies between baseball and faith, I never realized how closely they correlated until I discovered the book "Home Run" by Kevin Myers. Kevin is the Lead Pastor at 12Stone Church, a Wesleyan Church in the Atlanta area, which happens to be the fastest growing church in America. In his book, Kevin described spiritual development in the paradigm of the game of baseball. Being a follower of Christ and a fan of baseball I found many helpful applications from the comparisons.

I hope you will, too, as we study it together over the next forty days.

February 16, 2015

"Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.Do not be conceited." Romans 12:16

You don't have to be an expert in music to appreciate the importance of harmony. Even an untrained ear can hear when the music doesn't mesh!

First of all, you wouldn't want to listen to an orchestra consisting entirely of one type of instruments. One violin is beautiful when played properly. Even several of them when played harmoniously. But an entire orchestra made up of violins would grow tedious rather quickly.

Even worse, would be an orchestra made up entirely of violins and everyone of them playing out of tune.

When you listen to an orchestra or a choral group you expect to hear instruments or voices lifted in harmony. All the instruments or all the voices meld into one glorious sound, full and rich. It is a thing of beauty! It touches the soul!

But when you go to a concert prepared to be inspired by the music you notice right away if one of the voices or one of the instruments is out of tune or off key. The fine music of the many is spoiled by the lack of harmony by one.

Harmony is many blending their talents together into one beautiful result. It is what a local church is supposed to be. When each member plays his part so as to blend with the parts of the others in harmony, you have an example of what God wants His Church to be like. When that happens those people make beautiful music that is like a masterpiece in God's ears.

Harmony is preserved and protected by humility.

How so?

Each member of the orchestra must agree to play his part and only his part, nothing more or less. Perhaps there is a brief solo piece somewhere in the score for the concert, but a the beautiful music is realized when each member plays his music in a way that blends with the other instruments.

That is how God designed His church. It is not a place for solos or for stars to perform. It is a fellowship of God-lovers presenting a concert of love in unity with His Spirit and one another. At the heart of the harmony is humility.

The Church of Jesus Christ is better when each of us blend with all of us! When I humbly honor you and merge my talents with yours we hit all the right notes for God and He is glorified!