Lessons from the Baketball Team

As some of you may already know, I play basketball for the Clermont Christian Academy Chargers. Being apart of the team has been great for many reasons. It has been a great outlet that the Lord has provided and it has also taught me some valuable lessons. For instance, when you play basketball, you don't always do everything perfect. There are some mistakes that are made (sometimes pretty embarrassing ones). If you let them, these mistakes will drive you nuts with thoughts like,"I can't believe I just did that" or "I don't how I'm going to recover from that one." However common sense tells you that those thoughts are to be put away and focus needs to be re-centered on the game and and what needs to be done now not what should have been done in the past.

If this simple principle is common sense to us, why do we not apply it to our spiritual walk. When we mess up, we tend to beat ourselves over the head and then sit and wallow in our mistakes. However, when we do this, we wind up being of no good to God or to others because we are so wrapped up in ourselves. God's grace is there to hold us up spiritually even when we mess up. For us who have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ alone as our Savior, we do not loose God's love or His salvation just because we messed up no matter how big or small that mistake may have been.God still loves us and holds us in His hand no matter what. The Lord has given us the guarantee in 1 John 1:9 that if we confess our sin to Him, He will forgive us. Don't get me wrong, we do need to be take sin seriously and be grieved whenever we do wrong. In reference to the proper attitude a believer should have towards sin in his life, James 4:9-10 says,"Be afflicted and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up." Whenever we do wrong we should be truly sorry for that sin, ask God for forgiveness, look at how we can do better, and then move on in the forgiveness of God with that knowledge of how we can do better in mind so we do not commit that sin again. So next time you fall, even if it is with that same old thing you have battled for so long, get back up and move keep moving forward. God's grace will always be there for you.