Thursday, October 6, 2011

KOBE

When it comes to discipleship, there is the view out there that people just need to decide to live a certain way, because after all, isn't the Christian life basically an act of the will?

All that love, joy, peace stuff comes when someone expends enough effort to demonstrate those qualities. Right?

So let's challenge people to roll up their sleeves, rub on a little elbow grease, and start living the way Jesus lived, because the only barrier to that happening is the person's level of effort.

Isn't that correct?

I don't know. Is it?

If you want to play basketball like
Kobe Bryant, don't you just have to try hard to make it happen? If you want to play piano like (insert your favorite famous pianist's name here), isn't all that's required is to try hard?

Neither
Kobe Bryant nor 'your favorite famous pianist's name here' got to be what they were simply by trying. They did it thru a life of preparation and practice. The jumps, acrobatics, timing, shooting, ability, scales, finger control, arpeggios, didn't come thru the game or concert times, but thru the practice times.

'To live like Jesus, we don't try; we train.'

For every breathtaking performance there were countless hours of dribbling, shooting and slaving over a keyboard.

To play like
Kobe or 'your favorite famous pianist's name here,' we don't try; we train. We do the things they did in order to perform more like them. And to live like Jesus, we don't try; we train. We do the things Jesus did in order to live like He lived.

A key to life transformation is ordering our life around some of the practice activities that were modeled by Christ so we can accomplish thru training what we cannot accomplish by trying.

And be blessed.

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