With heart pounding, palms sweating, I was on the edge of my seat watching Game 5 of my favorite basketball team, the Miami Heat trying to close out the finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder. One more win and they’re the champs. And after 48 minutes of playing time…they did it! They’re the new champs! I found myself shouting in jubilation…alone in the house! I wonder what the neighbors thought.

Anyway, I know it’s just a game. But there are so many analogies you can draw out, so many parallels between basketball and the church. One glaring example is TEAMWORK. Basketball is a team sport. No one person can win a game, it takes teamwork to accomplish the job. There is no letter “I” in the word team.

As a church we are a team. The Church isn’t made up of a lot of disconnected people. The Church is not you over there doing your thing and me over here doing my thing. We are to work together. I’m sure that we all want to fulfill God’s purposes in our lives. But if we allow ourselves to become selfish, then we end up all doing our own thing.  (Read Phil.2:1-4).  We, the Church, must be a team, working together to accomplishing God’s purposes, because that’s the only way they can be accomplished. If I am considering you above me, and you are considering me above you, a marvelous thing happens: we have a community where everyone is looked up to, and no one else is looked down on!

In a basketball team, there’s the COACH who directs, instructs, guides, teaches and leads. And the team must trust the coach. In the church, Jesus is our coach. And He’s perfect at that!  God’s ways are higher than our ways. Most of the time His directions do not make sense to human understanding. The Christian life is a life of faith. The danger is when we stop trusting and start relying on ourselves, our own ideas and understanding (Prov. 3:5-6Prov. 3:5-6
English: King James Version (1611) - KJV
5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. ⁶ In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.  

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It’s dangerous to think that you’ve got the key and the secret for success. Oh how we need to seek the counsel and the wisdom of God in everything. You see, God doesn’t always follow the same pattern. The conquest of Ai doesn’t follow the same pattern as the conquest of Jericho. God has a new strategy, and a new tactic. We are so often trying to formulate God. We’re trying to conform God to a pattern.  We’re trying to give the formula for success, “Now this is what you do. This is what we did in our city”. But God might have a totally different plan for the next city.

God wants us to trust even when we do not understand, when the future is uncertain, when we feel like we cannot go on. God says trust Him. No matter how long, how rough, how dark, how lonely the way may seem, trust God and His love for you. Some of you are being called to trust Him in the midst of suffering, perhaps some physical illness or financial difficulty, or whatever it may be. You need to know that you can trust Him.

Yes, basketball is just a game…and life is not a playground but a battleground. But Praise God that in this battle called life, we have a Saviour who fought the battle for us and won! He is the TRUE CHAMPION who conquered sin and death! And if you are on His team, you’re a winner!

ANNOUNCEMENT:

THAILAND MISSION 2012 NIGHT OF TESTIMONY is on July 1, 2012, 6:30 pm. Everyone is invited to come and listen to what the Lord has done thru the team.

BEREAN CLASS/EVANGELISM CLASS will start on July 10 at 6pm here at CCD.

New time slot for HOPE FOR YOU RADIO at DYSR Killer Bee 95.1 FM — every Wednesday at 9:00 pm till 10:00l 10:00
English: King James Version (1611) - KJV
Štetje svetopisemskih vrstic se začne z ¹! Vrstica ⁰ ne obstaja!

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