Basketball and a Christian Part 1

     During class on a Sunday, Eric mentioned the case of a young boy (and yes it could be a girl) and the amount of work it entailed to become an effective basketball player. I whole-heartedly agree with him. First you must make up your mind that this is not just going to be a part time thing. Pro basketball players (and those of any other sport) must practice practice practice. Every single moment of free time must be dedicated to practice or playing the game with others. Watching others practice is essential. The point is that it will require a level of dedication.

I have seen elementary kids playing and very few hoops were made, but they did not give up and did not get out of the game. Of course, there were some that did. They saw the hoop as too high, or that the other guys playing were too good at the game before they started. Maybe they got physically hurt, and sometimes repeatedly by the bigger older guys, or maybe got tired of being made fun of for not making the shots when they had the ball. But if you are dedicated to the “practice until you are exhausted” you can make it, maybe not professionally, but the game becomes something you are good at and continue to play because you enjoy it and feel a dedication to make it part of your life. Whatever you motivation is you continue to do it as long as you live. I have even seen a senior’s league where some of the men were over 70 years old and were in extremely good shape and still playing and practicing. And above all each play must learn the rules of the game and make a commitment to abide by them and be willing to acknowledge when we have broken the rules and accept the punishment/consequences of the rules of the game.

I spoke of all of this is to remind us of our lives as Christians. The first thing we must do is become knowledgeable of what a Christian is. And not just of what sin is. Sin is part of it, but the commitment to become a Christian is not a light decision. It takes a commitment that is a lifelong commitment. If you are going to just play at being a Christian and see it as a sort of sport we can step in and out of at our convenience or until other commitments take priority, then becoming a Christian can have dire consequences in Eternity (Rev 2:10b). (Just like learning ALL the rules of basketball to be a good player)

How much of a faith do we need to have to be a Christian? Some say just the knowledge of Sin and a belief that Christ was the SON of GOD, and seemingly understand the meaning of baptism. I feel we fall far short of teaching the truth to think if that is only as far as we need to go. We will become very much like the seed of Luke 8:12 when we do not get a full enough foundation and Satan comes and steals the words of GOD from our hearts and we fall away. We need to understand the commitment that we need to “have the inner man renewed day by day” (2 COR 4:16).  Whatever the reason, the scriptures teach us that we can have the word stolen out of our hearts by Satan (Luke 8:12).  —–To be continued next week!   ~James Waldrep