July 2, 2012 - "1st and Ten..."

Recently my oldest son, Clay, was conducting a personal basketball training session for a young boy. The session went very well and the boy’s dad told Clay he would like for him to train his son 3 times a week. At first thought that meant Clay would be able to pull in more $; yet I was proud of Clay when I heard how he responded to the man. He told him that personal training should be to equip the player with ways to put in individual workouts. It should be the catalyst to personal work ethic. Basically Clay told him that he shouldn’t have to pay a trainer 3 times a week; that if the boy needed 3 sessions a week it is probably an indicator of lack of interest to get better on his own…

The man was thankful for Clay’s response and has hired him to train his son. The get-rich-quick mindset of most would think that Clay is crazy and that he should have taken as much money and as many sessions as possible. Yet long term what is best for the boy in this picture? And ultimately what is the best scenario for Clay in building long-term clients?

I thought about this as I read a Facebook post earlier this morning. It was from my friend Carl Batteiger in Indiana. It read as follows: “Driving in this morning and noticed how the corn fields looked as parched and dry as they did yesterday, the little bit of rain brought nothing more than surface relief...then was thinking that is how it is with a good portion of us as followers of Jesus, we come in for an hour or so on Sunday, dry, parched and starving for spiritual water and food. As great as some of our services are on Sunday, that little sprinkling is not much more then surface relief, inside we are still, dry, parched and starving...Just a thought....”

I grew up around churches that had multiple mandatory meetings throughout the week. It seemed like they wanted you there every moment possible. Now in the modern times it is more common to have just one weekly service and maybe throw in a life group in the week.

Either approach I feel is missing the mark. Just as in Clay’s scenario, there should be some personal responsibility in believers to get time in the Word. Yet only one time a week in the Word is not enough – (thank you Carl for that reminder on Facebook…)

The Scriptures call for us to meditate on the Word. They call for us to “study to show ourselves approved” and to “rightly divide the Word.” (I am not giving you the references – go find these thoughts on your own – take some personal initiative…)

Simply put you and I need to eat more than once a week. We need to study the Word. We need to allow the Word to “transform us by the renewing of our minds.”

Have you had time with the Lord this morning? Will you have time with Him (and for Him) tomorrow? The next day?...

Camp Grace - each morning before breakfast

I challenge you this week in a way that my great friend Freddie Coile challenged campers this past week at Camp Grace. Start each day “1^st and 10” with God- first thing in the morning take 10 minutes in prayer and the Word. It is a simple start of the day that will change the way you look at things. (And by the way, Jesus started His days off with the Father – if you study the Word you will find that too…)