October 3, 2011 - Leave It All On The Court!

“Leave it all on the court!”
“Bust it to the buzzer!”
“The only numbers on the scoreboard that truly matter? The clock – Give your all until it zeros out!”

I love to coach players that leave the court exhausted! I love to coach players that have to look at me and ask for a substitute because they have been giving it all. (In fact I had a standing rule that if you came out of the game because of exhaustion that I would get you back in the game as soon as you were ready. The adverse, if I pulled you because of laziness you should expect a long visit on the sidelines!)

The point is I want to see that the game matters to you as my player.

I recently heard a commercial on television where an older guy stated “I want to die exhausted.” It wasn’t a very good advertisement because I cannot remember the product, but the line jumped out at me.

John Wesley was quoted as saying, ““Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.” I also saw that it was attributed to him as saying “I want to die exhausted for Christ.”

All of this has me thinking of an admonition in the Scriptures that I quote often in these devotions: 1 Corinthians 15:58 tell us to be steadfast and immovable. We are good at that in the church. We hold fast to our doctrine and traditions. We consistently meet together (and often sit in the same seats.) My fear is that we have taken the word “immovable” too far. We ignore the next part that says we should be always abounding in the work of the Lord.

Did you get that? “Always!”-----“Abounding!”

Or in the words of John Wooden, “Move, move, move!”

So what is the “work of the Lord?” We can look at a lot of things yet based upon the great commission I think we can easily state that there is a huge emphasis on “the Lord of the Harvest.”

2 Then He said to them, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. (Luke 10)

34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! 36 And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. (John 4)

Are you willing to give your all until the “buzzer sounds”? Are you going to “leave it all on the court”? God’s “game plan” is clear.

I don’t know about you, but I want to “die exhausted”!