God’s Top Athletes

God’s Top Athletes

Sports are a big part of life in almost every country. We appreciate athletes who win. We even develop a great deal of respect for certain players who are especially good at what they do.

However, if you wanted to perform as well as they do, simply observing, taking lessons, practicing, or even eating the same kind of food usually will not be enough to bring you up to their level. Probably, the only way for you to become as proficient as they are is to transplant an athlete’s mind into your head. For it is in the mind that true change begins.

The Bible tells us, “Actually (we) do have within us a portion of the very thoughts and mind of Christ” (1Coritnthians 2:16 TLB). It makes a lot of difference when you have Christ living in you. When we are born again, we “have been crucified with Christ: and (we ourselves) no longer live, but Christ lives in (us)”(Galatians 2:20 TLB). We experience a spiritual transplant.

I knew this when I accepted Jesus Christ. But I realized only later that I had to live a ‘daily crucified’ life. When Christ was crucified, His feet –which He had used to walk to needy people and help them-were immobilized, His hands-which He had used to touch many and bring healing and consolation-were nailed. His enemies thought, He would never again serve others with those hands and feet.

Not only did they immobilize Him; they mocked Him, telling Him to “perform another miracle” and come down from the cross. Though Christ had the power to perform any miracle, He suffered and listened to them. This is the crucified life.

Each of us need to live such a life daily. When we do so, we continue His work, enabling Jesus to walk and touch through our hands and feet. “When God the Father, with glorious power, brought him back to life again, you were given his wonderful new life to enjoy.” (Romans 6:4 TLB).

Christ’s hands and feet didn’t remain nailed. He lives inside the born-again believer, and He therefore has great potential. The Spirit of God gives us spiritual gifts and power. The Bible talks about understanding “how incredibly great his power is to help (us)” (Ephesians 1:19 TLB).

As a parent, I have seen how children reflect what they learn and inherit from their parents and environment. Parents have a role in the inheritance & development of talents, character and behavior. Likewise, when Christ comes to live within us. He begins to transform us. By the will of God, He is even now changing us from what we are by nature to what we need to be. God wants us to bear His character. God wants to work through us.

This means that our veiled character traits must be removed and replaced with good qualities. Our inability to love God and man must be replaced with the ability and strength to do so. Due to our learning and environment, all of us have instincts for various actions. Some of these are good, some are bad. We know which areas in our lives need cleansing and further development.

When we allow Christ to come into our lives, we become a combination of genes, training & plus, what God gives us as a result of accepting Jesus Christ. In the mystery of God’s grace, all these-heredity, genes, environment, training, and the spiritual component work together! The spiritual blessings God bestows on me work in harmony with what good qualities God has given me in my genes, environment and training. If I disregard the spiritual component, I lose a great deal and become deficient. This produces a myriad of problems. But God also works in myriad ways to bring about His will and work, despite our deficiencies.   

THE UNKNOWN THIEF!

Several years ago, in September of 1982, I was at the airport in Lima, Peru. I didn’t want to bother my host by asking him to stay with me at the check-in area at the airport. So I asked him to drop me at the departure area and go home to have some rest.

I stood in line along with the other passengers, holding onto my briefcase and pushing the suitcase forward until it was my turn. When I got to the counter, I requested a good seat, as it was a night flight from Lima to Los Angeles. I handed the agent my tickets, passport, and the ten-dollar airport tax. All the other documents- my health certificate against yellow fever, Bible, notes, glasses, items for personal use, and money-were in my briefcase, which is allowed as a hand- carried bag.

Then disaster struck! During the few seconds I was talking to the agent at the check- in counter, someone stole my briefcase! I thought I had been watching it carefully, but apparently I hadn’t been careful enough.

I approached the airline staff and the local police. They responded in Spanish- probably telling me that I would never see my briefcase again. Finally I decided to telephone my host so that I could at least block the traveler’s checks from being used. But my glasses were in the briefcase, and I couldn’t find the telephone number because of the small print.

The airline staff showed some sympathy, and offered me a cool drink to quench my thirst. As I sat and sipped the drink, I began to wonder how, without the certificate for yellow fever, I was going to enter the U.S.A after visiting South America. Thankfully, an airline official gave me a letter explaining the loss of my health certificate, which would be sufficient.

Travelling empty-handed was a strange experience for me. I knew that anxiety and frustration could lead to fear and depression, and could even cause me to get sick. So I didn’t want to get bogged down in worry, even over the loss of valuable documents.

Although my hand was empty, my heart was full of assurance and hope. Bible verses like “Always be full of joy in the Lord; I say it again, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4), and “Always give thanks for everything to our God” (Ephesians 5:20) kept coming to my mind.

I began to see that I have to rejoice and praise God even for losses. When we praise God in the midst of loss, we acknowledge that He will compensate us for the loss. God never takes away the good and desirable things from our hand unless He is going to replace them with something far better!

Once I made it home, I had to replace the Bible and practically all the materials I used for travel, including the briefcase itself. Of course, the Lord taught me to be more careful, and I told my traveling friends what had happened & cautioned them against overconfidence.

Several days later, I thought I would be able to trace the thief when the bank informed me that a traveler’s check was cashed through an account holder in a South American bank.  I was surprised to see the copy of my forged signature. The thief must have copied my signature from the health certificate. I corresponded a great deal with the bank, but they weren’t cooperative in tracing the thief. I was just grateful that my air ticket (all the way to Trivandrum, India) and passport weren’t in the briefcase when it was stolen.

God worked on my attitude toward the thief. Thieves are needy people. We have to love even antisocial elements of our world. We must always remember that Jesus came to save sinners. Yes, our Lord hates sin, but He loves sinners. Whether someone commits sin as a victim of circumstances or does it willfully, Jesus still prays the prayer: “Father, forgive these people …..for they don’t know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

God reminded me that Jesus is praying not only for people who steal, but for me also. I need to be forgiven for my wrong attitude that I show in my responses. In God’s mercy, we all receive forgiveness. But confessing our faults and sins and receiving forgiveness isn’t  a license to do it again.

I was told of one boy who lived in a community hostel. He confessed to the warden that he had stolen three apples from the kitchen store. But the kitchen staff found only two missing. The boy was questioned about the third apple mentioned in his confession. He replied that he would steal the third one, the following week – and so confessed in advance!

Admit before God your desire to avoid sin, and confess your sins. The apostle Paul said:”-I used to scoff at the name of Christ. I hunted down his people, harming them in every way I could. But God had mercy on me because I didn’t know Christ at that time.  Oh, how kind our Lord was, for he showed me how to trust him” (1Thimothy 1:13-14).

It’s easy for us to think we really don’t do anything that needs forgiveness. But we are all human, and we all sin. When we are lazy or waste time at our job, we are actually stealing from our employer. When we do personal things during office hours, we are stealing from our employer. If we aren’t giving a certain portion of our income to God’s work, we are stealing what belongs to God. Here too, we may have to get right with God.

God used this experience and my feelings about the thief to help me see that I need forgiveness. None of us are blameless. But we all can be forgiven!

    

A NICE DAY!

When I travel, I normally use air travel to save time. This can make flight delays very frustrating.

Once on my way to Madras, I had a stopover in Colombo, Suddenly the chief steward announced over the public address system that there would be a delay of several hours, necessitating a “night stay” in Colombo.

The passengers were sure they couldn’t have heard correctly, because it was only 9 am! Several began to complain and grumble. Some started getting angry. No one was willing to move out of the airport area.

While we were waiting for transportation to the hotel I decided to put Proverbs 12:25 into action: “Anxious hearts are very heavy, but a word of encouragement does wonders!” I looked around and shouted: “We are going to have a nice day here, not a night stay! That’s what I heard them say.”

Sometimes we feel powerless to change our attitude. But when we change our thoughts, we change the world around us. It’s true that we don’t have strength within us to counteract the strong influence of certain situations. That is the time we must turn to God for help.. In God, we have great power; that’s why we say that with God’s grace we can change the worst into best.

Dr. John Haggai has taught me the definition of grace. He said, “Grace is God giving us freely what He requires of us.” God wants me to change my attitude. Since I don’t have the power to do that myself, God, by grace, gives me the power to do it.

The airline put us up in a five-star hotel, where we enjoyed free meals. And we went sight-seeing. Then, around 5:30pm, we were told that the ground engineers had repaired the radar equipment of the aircraft, and we were all called back to resume our flight. As it turned out, we really did have a nice day instead of a night stay.

God’s grace can help change attitudes.