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Who is wise?

He will realize these things.

Who is discerning?
He will understand them. (Hosea 14:9a, NIV)

If you are wise, you will know and understand what I mean. (Hosea 14:9a, CEV)

Qualifying

Kristin arched her eyebrow when I told her. Now, I’m telling you, too: I’m going to run a marathon this year, which by itself is a lofty goal. But, I don’t want to just complete the 26.2 mile race. I want to run it fast enough to qualify for one of the most prestigious marathons in the country, the Boston Marathon. There. I said it.

My wife remembers my last marathon all too well. Eleven years ago, my friend Jeff convinced me to run in the Rock n’ Roll Marathon in San Diego. As I staggered across the finish line, my legs felt like I was dragging them through wet cement, and my skin color melded seamlessly with my soaked white shirt. My legs hurt so bad, I walked backwards for three days, and I avoided stairs like the front pew in the Sanctuary. Whatever I had done for training did not prepare me for the actual race, and I paid dearly for it.

But as Paul said in several references relating the similarities of physical training to spiritual training, I am starting by “forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead” (Philippians 3:13). I’m ready to go into strict training, preparing to “run in such a way as to get the prize” (1 Cor. 9:24).

My qualifying race is not until July, but preparation starts now. To achieve my marathon goal this time will require sustained focus, dedication, determination, discipline, patience, perseverance, sacrifice and commitment on my part, not to mention the support and encouragement of others.

Sound familiar? If not, then maybe it’s time to pay closer attention to those sermons on Sundays, especially the parts about how to live like Christ. Being a Christian is not a spectator sport. God calls for active participation, and that participation requires preparation.

Come July, I want to be so prepared that I will be sure of qualifying for Boston. Physically, I need to start increasing the miles I run and my speed. In my spiritual life, I want to be so prepared that my eternal calling and election will be sure (2 Peter 1:10), and to do that, I need to improve my prayer life. Over the next four months, I plan on making strides to improve both physically and spiritually.

What about you? What are the goals for your spiritual life to draw closer to God? How are you going to “train yourself to be Godly” (1 Tim. 4:7)?

Take the Charge

“Take it for the team!” my junior high basketball coach would holler, hoping to motivate us for our least favorite practice drill – taking the charge. To take a charge, a defensive player works and moves and hustles to establish a position on the court in front of an onrushing offensive player, and then willfully lets that offensive player crash into him (or her). The referee calls a foul on the offensive player, and the defensive team gets the ball back. Taking the charge can be a great equalizer during a game because even the smallest player on the court can gain an advantage for his team by drawing a foul on the biggest player on the court.

Taking the charge is a tough-to-learn basketball fundamental because it requires a player to willfully and purposefully put himself in a position to get clobbered. In junior high, we practiced taking the charge by standing near the basket while all 6 foot-4 inches, 200-plus pounds of the coach came barreling at us, full speed. The lesson he tried drilling into us was that by getting flattened – and there is no way that you can take a charge without getting knocked to the floor – you were benefiting your team. Although charging calls do not happen very often, the momentum of the game can swing dramatically when they do occur.

When God’s wrath and anger against us all for our repeated sins demanded a sacrifice for atonement, He sent His only son Jesus to take the charge for you and for me. But Jesus did not just get knocked down. He was ridiculed, mocked, punched, slapped, beaten, spit on, flogged, and then nailed to a cross to be crucified, where He withered as He mercilessly suffered an excruciating death by suffocation. Isaiah prophesied “He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5, NIV), “beaten and bloodied, so disfigured one would scarcely know he was a person” (Isaiah 52:14, NLT). Christ willfully and purposefully took up His position in front of God’s wrath, so we could all go to heaven. Talk about taking it for His team so we can win.

M&Ms

You don’t need to convince me about original sin – I survived potty training our daughter. When we started to get serious about the whole potty training thing, my wife and I agreed that our daughter would get one M&M for just sitting on the toilet as a method of encouragement. When she agreed to sit, we gave her an M&M. However, we limited the chocolate reward to one try within a reasonable amount of time. No bouncing on and off the potty just to get more M&Ms.

After coming home one night during this same period, a frazzled babysitter and a chocolate-crazed 2-year old blazed past us at the door. Although we discussed the M&M/potty training plan with the babysitter, we forgot to tell her about the “one try” limit. Even at two years old, our daughter instinctually knew enough to swindle the clueless babysitter nine times in just two hours to keep getting more chocolate.

If we could have gotten her to focus through her sugar rush and ask her why she kept lying to the babysitter, I’m sure her very eloquent response would have been, “It is no longer I myself who did it, but it is sin living in me” (Romans 7:17). We were stunned by the deceit she demonstrated so easily. But maybe we shouldn’t have been, for as David said, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5). The sin and the inclination to do wrong were already in our daughter, and it lurks in all of us.

To be properly prepared for Easter, Lent should be a time to repent and purify ourselves to properly present ourselves before God. Yet, with all those sins that we are aware of and unaware of since conception, repentance can seem like a very daunting task. However, repentance is as simple as sincerely asking God to, please, “forgive my hidden faults,” and “keep your servant also from willful sins” (Psalm 19:12-13). Jesus paid for each and every sin we have committed by being crucified. His blood “purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7), whether that sin was deliberate or unconsciously involved M&M’s from when we were seemingly innocent 2-year olds