Life is a lot like baseball. In order to play you just need to understand a few rules, get down the fundamentals, and then practice. How much you practice has a big bearing on how you get along. A coach in Texas used to make his players follow the “Rule of 100″. Every player had to throw 100, catch 100, hit 100 balls EVERY day. Sounds like work. But he produced some great baseball players and some great teams. Went to the State championship a lot of times.
Life in Jesus is like that. To be a follower of Jesus you just need to learn the rules, get down the fundamentals and then practice. What are the fundamentals? Talk to God, listen to God; trust God and obey Him. EVERY day. Pretty simple, but not easy. Takes practice. The more you do it, the easier it gets. The reward is that you develop a personal relationship with the Creator of the Universe and He comes to live in your own private heart. Life just can’t get any better than that.Like I said. It’s like baseball. When you get on a losing streak, what do all good coaches recommend? Get back to the fundamentals. When you stick with the fundamentals, it’ll turn your game and your life around. Thanks Tex
Discipline is one of the ‘fruits of the Spirit’, as in Galatians 5:22-23. But there it’s called ‘self-control.’ Discipline (as in self-control) is extolled as a virtue, almost without equal. If you can be self-disciplined, then you can achieve almost any goal known to man. Wars are won by armies who have the most self-disciplined soldiers, from top to bottom. Their officers not only give good orders, but their troops respond well to orders, and they always fulfill their orders. Of such are great men and great events made.
Romans 8:1-4: “1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not follow their sinful nature, but follow the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made us free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the sinful nature, God, by sending His own Son . . . condemned the sin of the sinful nature, 4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not follow our sinful nature but follow the Spirit.”
Romans 12:1 says, “I beg you, brothers and sisters, to present you bodies as a living sacrifice ….”
For several years I’ve been writing this book, and after many ups and downs, God let it be published. It’s about discipleship, but it’s not your standard book on the subject. The other day I was at the bank talking to them about opening a new bank account for marketing and promotion of the book, and I was talking to the bank manager and one of the cashiers named Polly. I showed them a copy I just happened to have handy (Ha!). I told them a little about it, and I mentioned that it was available on the Barnes and Noble website on the ‘Net’. I said I had been looking at their website and they had the first 29 pages of the book as a ‘reading sample’. I thought that was pretty cool. They were nice and said they thought it was really neat that I had actually gotten a book published! I said, “Thanks.”
“I have no right to say I believe in God unless I order my life as under His all-seeing Eye.” Disciples Indeed, Oswald Chambers.
I was inspired by a devotional I read last week (01.21.16) by Charles Stanley. He said, in part, “When we encounter opportunities to serve God, we don’t always respond in the way He desires.” Maybe “our schedule is too busy or we don’t feel qualified.” . . . “You probably never thought of a refusal to serve God as a type of idolatry, but that’s what it is—bowing down to self instead of submitting to Him.” . . . “when we’ve already decided what we can’t do, won’t do, or are ill-equipped to do, then we’re acting by our own will. That doesn’t work.” . . .”Laying down our excuses is the wisest thing to do when serving the Lord.” . . . “All He asks is that you say ‘Yes’.”
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