Stay in the Game
One of my less than pleasant memories comes from the spring of my sixth grade year in school.
Our teachers had organized the boys from the different classes into teams to play a game of flag football during the lunch break. We played one game every day, with the teachers serving as referees and keeping track of our scores. It was great! The team I was on (as a blocking lineman) did not lose because we were rough, tough and hard to stop. As the “season” came to a close my team found itself scheduled for the champion game with the opportunity to be undefeated.
In typical sixth-grader fashion I forgot my old clothes to play in that day. I was in a dilemma as I found myself on a muddy field with mom’s voice in my head about not getting grass stains on my kakis. Faced with certain death if I got dirty, I remember trying to work out a deal with the boy from the other team that I would be blocking on all of our plays. I offered what I thought was a reasonable compromise – “If I don’t knock you down, then you don’t knock me down”. Yet as the game began I soon discovered that arrangement essentially destroyed my ability to function on the team since my opponent simply went around me and made many crucial tackles. We lost.
Many times in our Christian walk we become victims of destruction in much the same way. Satan doesn’t want to “take us out of the game” because we would fight that. What he does is much more subtle. He suggests numerous areas of compromise that essentially remove us from being effective and productive members of the body of Christ. We fear what others may think, so we keep quiet about witnessing for the Lord and think they will “see” Jesus in us. Then we feel self-conscious about reaching out or doing things Jesus would have us do, so we avoid contact with others and just stick with going to church. Once we are confined to that sacred area, we compromise even more by not truly living in an accountable relationship with our brothers and sisters and just attend service. The result is the destruction of the work of Jesus and our own walk with Christ.
Rather than staying safe, we are called to “get our hands dirty” for the sake of reaching those who are lost. We must work hard to stay in the game!
How exciting to be His people,
Pastor David Vanderpool
