What drives you to play the game? (Or for us old geezers,
what drove us to play the game? And in some cases to limp out there and try to continue
playing the game?)
I know for me that the sweetest times I spent on the
court were often in my backyard avoiding the drop off on the side of the
concrete… or avoiding the raised cracked concrete… or hopping the fence to
retrieve a ball that bounced over… at times playing in the rain… at times
shoveling snow that tried to interrupt my hooping plans. The court was only
around the width of a free throw lane; the concrete was rough; but in my
backyard I fell in love with the game. On that court I became all my basketball
heroes and played for my favorite teams. Because of that love adversity didn’t matter;
the negatives I mentioned just morphed into part of the game. And when the ball
went up in my backyard, that court and each game was every bit as important to
me as the thousands of times I’ve laced up my shoes in nice gymnasiums. It was
not hard to get me to go out to the court to play; but it was very hard to get
me to come back in the house. When you love something you logically want to be
around it… want to spend time with it… want to know more about it… don’t allow
adversity to stop you… etc. For me my basketball is love-driven (or one could
even say it is part of the spirit of who I am and thus spirit-driven.)
This came to my mind as I was studying for a message last
night about the early church. One of the sites (CityLightBratislava.com) I came across when researching stated the
following:
“…we don’t
actually see that the EC had a real clear idea what they were doing or that
they were “church planting.” Their devotion to the Word, fellowship, communion,
and prayer were not sophisticated, sociologically engineered church planting methods.
No, the EC was… a “SPIRIT driven church”!!!”
The early
church simply was overwhelmed with what they realized Christ had done for them.
Their world was rocked by not only a crucified, but also a risen again Savior.
In fact in the text of Acts 2 in verse 32 it reminds them that they were
witnesses of this risen Savior… imagine physically being a witness of that
miracle…
The logical
result was wanting to spend time learning more and growing together. The text
goes on to tell us in verse 42 that they were “continually devoting” themselves…
in other words they were devoted daily to this thing we have called church. They
daily spent time at this… much like I did with my backyard basketball court. I
would say they were love-driven with their love for the Lord and we can’t miss
in the context the absolute clear picture that they were Spirit-driven.
I love the
reality that one’s personal growth and for the effectiveness of our churches,
there needs to be a natural response to the reality of who Jesus is and what He
has done and continues to do in our lives. The reality of the crucified and
risen again Savior should be rocking our worlds!
No comments:
Post a Comment