During the summer of two thousand and fifteen, the TCU baseball team experienced its share of ups and downs. Thankfully, we experienced more victories than losses. After winning over fifty games, we found ourselves in Omaha, Nebraska, for the College World Series.
The night before their opening game against the top-seeded LSU Tigers, the team held a meeting in the hotel. During the get-together, a pastor from Watermark Church in Dallas spoke to the players and coaches about sports, victory, defeat, and how Jesus fits in between.
Though I did not attend the meeting personally, my brother Mitchell passed the message along. He spoke about the tournament, which became a rare second trip to the College World Series for several of our returning
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In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we find an explanation of how Jesus reigns victoriously in the resurrection of the saints.
Ephesians 2:1-3 (ESV), “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” (emphasis mine)
From this text, we learn how victory cannot come from within. If all we have is ourselves, we lose in this life and the life to come. In fact, we never see the field. The bus never arrives at the stadium. The game never even begins. That’s where we stand without Christ.
Unless we hold fast to Christ in our hearts, we cannot play the game. However, when we live because of Jesus, we live from victory and for victory. Jesus did the heavy lifting for us on the walk to Calvary, while the weight of the world rested upon His shoulders. Yes, there are battles to be fought, but Jesus already won the war for
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We were dead … but God. We deserved hell … but God. We earned defeat … but God. While we live in a society where we constantly hear what we aren’t (i.e. not smart enough, not pretty enough, not wealthy enough, not educated enough), the Gospel tells us who we are. We are God’s creation. We are God’s design. We are God’s redeemed.
Even though Jesus already won the war and we know how the story ends in the book of Revelation, God used this moment to prepare us for eternity. He changed our position from death to life and seated us with Him in heaven, so we might see the immeasurable riches of His grace and mercy in the light of eternity. Our God is an awesome God!
God knew I would disobey Him, and He loves me still. He uses our travail for His triumph. He makes mercy and grace infinitely available for the day (Lamentation 3:22-23). We cannot confine grace to a box because the Gospel says every person in every situation has hope in Jesus Christ. God lovingly refuses to keep score of the things we do because Jesus already settled the score on the
In basketball, the National Championship game is the dream of every kid that plays basketball in college. NC State’s basketball team wasn’t well known in 1983. Jim Valvano was the coach and he knew he had a great group of kids. When they won the ACC tournament against the great Ralph Sampson and Virginia, people thought that the win was just luck and they probably wouldn’t make last when they got into the tournament. Throughout the tournament, NC State kept surviving and advancing. In Johnathan Hock’s documentary “Survive and Advance”, Hock uses stock footage of the games that were played during the tournament, different points of view from the players, and the sequence of the documentary to prove that NC State’s basketball team were the underdogs during the whole tournament; however they were able to win despite their adversity
The school was small. The program was an afterthought. The gymnasium was non-existent. That a team from the College of the Holy Cross should find itself in the championship game of the NCAA Tournament was a preposterous notion.
...e toward him as well, since at one point he felt he deserved to die for what he had done. This grace gives him a purpose and strength to go on living, even though he may never completely overcome the hurt and pain.
Vilona, Bill. “College Football Playoffs Not in the Picture.” Pensacola News Journal. 23 Jul. 2000. n. pag. 4 Apr. 2003. .
We may be behind on the scoreboard at the end of the game but if you play like that, we cannot be defeated.” He used pathos to hit the player’s soul by explaining himself, explaining that he doesn’t want the team to be the champion by winning, he wanted the team to be the champion by showing their hard work and their passion on the field. And also the coach is using logos by bringing up the six Sons of Marshall, the six players, the six teammates who went away by a plane
In His mercy, God chooses to overlook our past and allow us to remain in his favor. Thy mercies, oh Lord, are new every morning! The Amplified Bible defines grace as: God 's unmerited favor. Romans 5:8, …
We are now put right with God by the sacrificial death of his son, and we are now saved from God's anger! ! We must also remember that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, and we must again be eternally grateful! Jesus died. 1. To save humans from the consequences of sin.
Analysis of biblical writings has helped us to better understand the challenges and mysteries of scripture. In studying Ephesians 1: 15-23, research will help us draw out the bigger picture of what the writer intends to convey in his message. This passage is a prayer of thanksgiving and intercession in which Paul expresses gratitude to God upon hearing of the Ephesians “faith in the Lord Jesus and love toward all the saints” (1: 15 NRSV). This leads Paul to pray intensively that the Ephesians will gain an expanded awareness of the extraordinary and unsurpassed power of God manifested on their behalf. Paul writes this as encouragement and support to the readers.
The desire to study God’s word to obtain a personal connection is a pursuit for many believers. Beginning a course to study and engage with the word at a collegiate level can be overwhelming and intimidating. Even though one may read the word countless times during their lifetime, understanding the reading material academically and historically is a different concept to master. Personally, I was apprehensive about my overall ability to retain the information and comprehend the context of the scientific and historical aspect of God’s word. However, Tarwater wrote in a manner that was engaging and invited me into the historical importance of the words and understanding God. From beginning to end, Tarwater
Class notes. Man’s Desperate Need of Righteousness and God’s Glorious Provision of Righteousness. Faith Christian University. Orlando, Florida. August 2011.
Douglas Moo writes it beautifully, “Because we are justified by faith in conjunction with our union with Christ, we escape the sentence of spiritual death that out sins have justly earned. Transferred into the new regime of life, we no longer fear that our sins will ever condemn us.”
battle between us and the evil Spirits. This truth is clearly taught in the Bible. Paul stated that
These lines are, to me, invaluable sections of the Apostle’s Creed. The first one, which is also the first recitation in the creed, clarifies that God is the creator of everything past and present. While this seems simple on the surface, it is an extremely complicated topic when you consider it from all angles. As we discussed last week during group, there innumerable ways of interpreting the creation of the world. Some believe that the world was created in 6 literal twenty-four hour periods, others believe that the creation took place over 6 distinct, but elongated, periods. In addition to that dispute, there is an issue of exactly how much God created. I believe that evolution is a natural process in all life on earth, and that raises the question of whether God created all of the organisms present in this day in time, or if He created only the ancestral species of the organisms on earth today.
A man without Christ is a hopeless case because all his actions and services at best are but as filthy rags and dead works. Every man, in his unconverted state, is the skivvy and drudge of the devil, a worker of wickedness, still fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, being given over to vile affections.
Paul tells us to “fight the good fight of faith” (Tim. 6:12). We must not hold on to unbelief. When we give ourselve...