November 30, 2020 - GOOOAL!

GOOOAL! Just reading the word and I can imagine a Latin American announcer in a soccer game after a score… I’m sure there are other announcers that try to emulate that celebration, but let’s face it Latinos are known for their passion… being all in… and in it is awesome to hear the announcer make the call with so much enthusiasm and excitement!

Yet this week’s devotion is not really about announcers… but more so about scoring the GOOOAL… you see, I am enthusiastic about our GOOOALS and excited when they happen!

GOOOALS are a result of meeting our Objectives… which involves recognizing Opposition… and taking advantage of each Opportunity! I could spend weeks using this theme, but going to try to write a concise overview of my thoughts…

The Objective is to get the ball in the net; yet that is often easier said than done. There will be Opposition… a defense that wants to keep us from reaching the Objective… maybe it even creates a lack of Opportunity to be the one to score the goal… BUT, we can look then to set up a teammate to put it in the net… So, the idea of Opportunity involves our individual and our corporate (team) responsibilities to reach the Objective. In fact, there are some players that are never in a position in the game to make the soring strike on the ball… but still can (and should be) be responsible for setting up the Opportunity!

If heading toward the goal, one of the key things to recognize is what the Opposition is… which determines where opportunity lies… Often the job of the one with the ball is to draw the defense toward him, in order to create an open lane for a teammate to score when the ball is passed to him. Yet, if there is an open net, the one with the ball should not pass but instead should shoot! (When teaching defense, I teach that the number one rule is to “stop the ball”; because the only one in the game that can score is the one with the ball…)

As believers, our “score” (Objective) is to fulfill the Great Commission of sharing the Gospel and teaching the Word… and do that via the Great Commandment of loving God and loving others… and do this according to the Great Game Plan to reach our local, national, and internationally communities. So, the question becomes quite simple, are you, am I, passionate about those things taking place… are we “all in” to the point we look to execute the plan and to celebrate when it happens?

Sometimes we are in position to be the ones that “take the shot” and other times we are in position to be the one to “set up the shot.” We live in a church culture that for far too long has insinuated that it is the job of the church professionals to handle the sharing of the Gospel. When in fact, we should enthusiastically be looking for Opportunities to “get to the goal!”

Yet sometimes we are not in position to “score” but faced with an Opportunity to “assist” a teammate in doing so… we can all help obviously pray for those in “scoring position” and some of us are in a position to “assist” materially through finances, supplies, etc.

The key is that we are in different “positions”… I love what John Wooden said: “Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” The Apostle Paul stated it this way (under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit): “For if there is first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what one has, and not according to what he does not have.” (2 Corinthians 8:12)

So, this week, (and especially with tomorrow being Giving Tuesday… and end-of-year giving coming up), I have two admonitions for each of us:

1.       If there is an Opportunity to score in your life, then take the shot! Share the Gospel when you have an open lane!

2.       If there is Opposition to you taking the shot, find a way to make a pass (assist) a teammate in doing so!

Do what you can, when you can… and together we can yell, GOOOAL!

Side note: I ain’t gonna lie, InBounds is in some great lanes to score… but we need an assist. Please pray for us… and about possibly giving to help us Make A Difference…

InBounds Ministries, PO Box 981, Troutman, NC 28166

Paypal.me/goMADmoney

November 23, 2020 - One Option

Well here we are at another Thanksgiving week… (yet, technically we are told to have Thanksgiving Day… daily… 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in EVERYTHING give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you…)

So this week I am going to share a very familiar thought from over the years, and hopefully stick to the original plan of the devotions being a quick “timeout” to help adjust our time “on the court” during the week…

So, my Thanksgiving declaration is that I am thankful for the Gospel being clear and simple! Let me explain…

Yesterday I was doing some follow-up research on basketball shooting techniques as I prepared for some of our Total Player Academy training sessions. Growing up playing and coaching in Indiana was basically being a basketball fundamentalist… we (I) hung our hats on the strict adherence to certain rules of shooting on the methods to obtain success. Yet, if we put side-by-side video of the greatest shooters in the game, we will find variances (options) in the placement of their feet… in their load or set point… in their shot pocket… in their hand placement… etc. In fact, I looked at comparisons between Steph Curry and Klay Thompson… to find many variances in their methodology… (This is a “fundamentalist” nightmare… realizing there is not one set method of shooting…) But what was consistent was at the finish, with the shooting hand finding its way behind the ball and following through. The one thing that has to happen, in order to be a good shooter, is the ball must go straight!

It was amazing as I did a short experiment and typed into a search: Basketball Shooting Technique Video… in 0.35 seconds there were almost 70,000,000 hits… how many folks think they are experts on teaching shooting??? Bottom line is that is a challenge to get players lined up straight in their shooting.

All of that intro to remind us that there are over 4000 known religions of people trying to be experts on what God (or in some folks’ mindset… gods) expects to get right or straight for being on the “team.” Religion is simply man trying to get lined up (or to shoot straight) in pleasing God.

Now to my basic Thanksgiving declaration… God has spoken clearly and simply within His Word. (And yes, I write under the belief that the Bible is God’s inspired “playbook”!) In the Scripture we get to good news via the path of bad news…

The bad news is that God says we are not good enough to be on His team… none of us always shoot straight… we miss… we sin. Therefore, God sent Jesus to be our Substitute via His perfect life and sacrificial death… then resurrecting to offer us a place on the team… new life found only in Him!

The reason I want us to celebrate the clarity and simplicity of the Gospel is that it truly requires no methodology on our part to get it right… but instead the (methodology) is the execution of Jesus on the cross… Jesus executed a perfect game plan on earth, thus qualifying Him to be executed in our place… in essence God executed the plan of execution…

Let’s not only state that we are thankful that salvation is based upon the work Christ for us… (we simply receive the Gift…) but let’s also show our gratitude by sharing this gift with others and honoring God with our lives!

God didn’t require us to maneuver through a lot things to get it right… HE MADE IT RIGHT! He gave us only one option! I’m so thankful I don’t have to wade through 70,000,000 videos… or through 4000 religious opinions/options… but have a clear path outlined to God through the cross!

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him! 2 Corinthians 5:21

Jesus said to him, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 6:47

There is only one set way (option) of salvation!

November 16, 2020 - Victory in Defeat (A Great Testimony)

As a coach and an AD I loved to play against tough competition… not just those we could have a good battle with, but also those that I knew were going to beat the crud out of us; in fact, I much preferred that to playing teams we would beat the crud out of. Simply put, from a coaching standpoint there was more to learn against the strong competition; and weak competition typically created poor habits because we could be successful on the scoreboard without being sharp… and even at times it created bad habits that wouldn’t work against the better competition.

The reason most people like to play the “creampuffs” is because of the false belief that the scoreboard is the measure of success. And in the spiritual world. We tend to have the same thought process… that blessings and success are only when we are in victorious situations.

Yet I believe that there is something to be said about finding victory in defeat… that one’s posture is more important than one’s place or position in the standings. In fact, I think one of the greatest ways the world can see God’s grace in our lives, is how we handle adversity.

I can remember telling one of my teams that was truly outmatched in many of our conference games, that we wanted to walk tall in defeat… to make sure the other team had respect for us even if we had taken a beating on the scoreboard. (One of my biggest frustrations is seeing athletes give up…)

Most of the time when I talk about this topic I talk about Paul. I love that he maintained his passion and purpose even in prison. Even when his chains were broken, he stayed in a bad place/position in order to make a difference… it is amazing that the other prisoners and jailers heard singing and rejoicing... attitudes (POSTURE) of trust in God’s plan over circumstances… One of my favorite quotes I have used over the years was from Phillip Yancey, who stated: “God and life are not synonyms!”

This all came to mind for me last week as my pastor was teaching on Joseph… this guy is one of the most celebrated men of the Old Testament… finding great success… yet his success was not always on the “scoreboard.” Genesis 39 tell us that “he was a successful man.” (verse 2) And later in the chapter it says that “whatever he did, the Lord made it prosper.” (verse 23)

In verse 2 Joseph is a SUCCESFUL SLAVE and in verse 39 he is a PROSPEROUS PRISONER. Joseph’s PLACE/POSITION were not the indicators… it was his POSTURE. Joseph continued to trust and honor the Lord and in each of these situations it states “the Lord was with him.” (verses 2 and 23)

Joseph, like Paul, stayed focused on his PURPOSE and stood tall (POSTURE) for/with the Lord! This is victory even when the scoreboard says defeat…

November 9, 2020 - Vision and Visibility

This past week I had the privilege of sharing in an online revival series that was set up by one of my dear friends/co-laborers (and former student.) His heart was to have messages for a week leading up to Election Day and then there was a prayer service. When I was preparing the message, I was drawn to something that was a big mantra at the first of the year… that this would be a year of vision… 2020 vision… clarity… Yet, then the year started playing itself out and we have found ourselves in the midst of uncertainty… confusion… chaos… and, instead of clarity, it seems like we are in a fog.

You see vision is the ability to see… but that is not the same thing as visibility. Visibility is the distance in which one can see; and is affected by light and conditions. You can have 2020 vision with what is right in front of you, but it is not necessarily helpful when trying to travel in the fog.

I have often written over the years about handling pressure on the basketball court… about being able to make a play even though the defense is trying to cause confusion… chaos… and lack of clarity. When teaching how to do this on the basketball court I run players through drills to teach how to make passes that take advantage of “hot spots” on the opponents and make it harder for them to deflect or steal the ball… I also use the drills to show where and how I want teammates to cut… (ie on a break when the player with the ball gets it to the middle, he/she should know and trust that teammates are filling the lanes on a straight cut from free throw line extended to the box… and if you have played for me, you can probably hear me screaming, “no banana cuts!”)

If you are not a basketball player, you may be wondering what any of this has to do with vision or visibility or the Word of God… I believe the Scriptures are what give us proper vision and, even when there is confusion and chaos, clear visibility that cuts through the conditions.

Psalm 119:105 calls the Word a Lamp and a Light; It illuminates where we are… and where we are going! Therefore, I do not believe that we can effectively navigate the times/conditions we are in apart from truly hiding God’s Word in our hearts! (Psalm 119:11)

Throughout the Scriptures we see the clear directive to use the Word to navigate through life! I think we can even go as far as to say we will live in a fog apart from the Word.

One of the most common phrases we hear in today’s church world is that we are called to be “Christ followers.” It is a concept Jesus Himself used several times when calling us to follow. Yet that leaves the question of what it really means and how to do it.

The easiest assumption to make is to say following means go and do what He did (i.e. follow in footsteps.) And when He was here on earth in earthly form, there was some validity to that thought… go where He was going and then do what He was doing… which I have often said was the best discipleship program available.

I believe the idea of following/discipleship is 100% rooted in taking in the Word… the Light that was given to us. After all, the claim of Jesus is that He was the Word made flesh… the “Logos.” In other words, Jesus, was God incarnate (in the flesh)… the fullness of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

In the book of John, Jesus describes Himself as “the Light”, the same description as what is given to the Word: John 8:12 Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

Jesus promises vision and visibility to those that “follow” Him. The Word follow, in context, is not as much about what we do, but more about how we think (which in turn affects what we do.) Jesus was speaking to the crowd as a teacher and the word He used for “follow” is one that literally means one that would be a disciple or side with one’s party… (sounds like a good election week term)… one that would ascribe or buy into the other’s platform. We follow Jesus by ascribing to His teachings… allowing them to “transform” how we think, and thus how we live.

Even in the confusion and chaos, we can have clarity and know where and what we need to be doing!

November 2, 2020 - Elections (Try-outs)

Well here we are facing another Election Day… faced with choices… much like in coaching when holding tryouts…

Back in the day, when there was a such things as “cuts” in try-outs, it was a coaching staff’s duty to evaluate players and determine who would make the team. It is still true in determining who to draft… or who to offer a scholarship to. 

Over the years I have shared stories of these things in our weekly devotions… 

I remember sharing about one of my personal college try-outs when I simply didn’t perform the way the coach was hoping; I tried to show my passing skills and he was looking for a scorer…

I remember sharing about a college try-out where I played incredible, only to find that the coach only had 1 scholarship to offer and he needed a “Big” not a guard…

I’ve written about a hero of mine, Tony Dungy, where he had a DNDC policy… Do Not Draft due to Character issues…

All of these scenarios have something in common… not measuring up! They are legitimate ways to determine an athletic team… and even a political election… as we evaluate candidates based upon their performance, based upon what we think the “team” needs, and even based upon what we perceive in their character. 

Well if you are reading this because you think I was going to all the sudden become political in these posts, you were wrong. I am writing this week’s devotion to CELEBRATE how God determined who would be on His team… our VICTORY party!

In eternity past God, who is All-Knowing, looked into the future of His creation and saw the Fall of mankind… He saw that all humans would “fall short” (Romans 3:23) in conduct and character… none would measure up…

Therefore, He made the plan to put on a Team Human uniform/flesh (John 1:14) and “play a perfect game” on earth… thus qualifying as a Substitute for fallen man. When Jesus hung on the cross, it was in our stead… when He rose again it was an offer to be on God’s team!

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him! (2 Corinthians 5:21)

God, looking at humanity, found no one worthy, so in turn decided He would choose those that would put their faith in the finished work of Christ… God chose not the biggest, brightest, or best… He chose BELIEVERS for His team! (I’m not qualified to make the cut… BUT Jesus is!!!)

I’m not flying banners in this devotion for a political candidate… but CELEBRATING VICTORY IN JESUS!

For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes… (Romans 1:16)