July 2, 2018 - Excited To Join A New Team!

Well obviously, the big new this week in sports involves LeBron James deciding to sign with the Los Angeles Lakers… and everyone seems to have an opinion about it. Each time LeBron has made a choice of where to play the critics have come out of the woodworks… and of course his fans have been ecstatic.

Here is a post I saw today from one of my dear friends on Instagram, “To sacrifice, work, dream so hard that you become one of the best of your industry… good enough to write your own ticket and work where you want? Big time to me. I’d be proud if he was my kid. Congrats Mr. James. Continue to inspire young and old. I’ll definitely watch more Laker games with my notebook ready.” (Terry Primm… college basketball coach)

Staying on the positive side, Lakers fans are super excited… and the Lakers gained a lot of fans that love LeBron! It is a Laker party! In today’s professional sports world, players are rewarded with opportunities to make some choices on where they play and who they play with… LeBron decide he wanted to be a part of the Laker legacy. (I know the LeBron-haters are screaming that their heroes of old never had to get different teammates… all I’ll say… remember those guys already had incredible talent around them or didn’t win until they did -and- it’s simply a different world due to travel ball, etc.)

I am simply today wondering what it must be like in Heaven each time someone comes to know the Lord. In Luke 15 Jesus was hearing from His distractors… and said this, “I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents…” (vs 7) In other words, there is a party in heaven when someone joins the team!

We have a picture in the parable Jesus was sharing of a shepherd finding a lost sheep… It reminds me of a couple things:

1.       The shepherd pursued the lost… How does God pursue the lost? That is done through His people sharing the Gospel… (Romans 1:16 = the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation / Romans 10:14 = how can sinners hear without a preacher?) – therefore as believers we need to be faithful to witness / evangelize!!!

2.       The idea of the sinner “repenting” is the simple truth of the Scriptures… (Romans 10:14 = how can the believe in Him of whom they have not heard?) – the word repent means to “change one’s mind” –a sinner has to change his mind about who Jesus is and what He has done through the death and resurrection in order to believe in Him – we need to be sharing this truth!

I want to cause a party in Heaven! And I wonder if we get as excited as we should about seeing people get saved? That should be way more exciting than hearing what team LeBron is going to play for!