GAME TIME
“He who is not with Me is against me,
and he who gathers not with Me scatters abroad.”
Matthew12:30
Football season’s rapidly coming to a close with playoffs in full-form. Stadiums are full to capacity. And probably in most homes across the country, family members sit in front of large screens looking glued there as play after play unfolds before their eyes. And when the final score is tallied? They simply move on to the next game with the merest push of a small button.
And it doesn’t change when the season ends, only the sport venue alters....in a never-ceasing cycle with the world looking on while a mere handful of individuals play the game.
We’ve become a society living life, if it can be called life, on the side-lines. How did that happen? When did living change so dramatically? When did we become content with being shuffled aside, no longer being part of the whole? I’m not certain where the answer lies, but I can’t deny it’s the life I live day to day. And I’d bet it pretty well describes your life as well.
God didn’t created man in His own image to be a spectator, to sit contentedly on the side-line of life. Doing so has left the playing field to another team. A team whose goal remains diametrically opposed to the Father’s heart.
Have you ever noticed a unique quality in Jesus? He doesn’t pull punches. Saying it like it is may have rocked some boats, but He left you in little doubt about God’s plan for you. And it doesn’t include the sidelines. Could Jesus have put it any more plainly?
“He who is not with me is against me, and he who gathers not with Me scatters abroad...”
I don’t believe for one minute that Jesus meant rooting for His side cut it when it comes to being with Him. I believe it was a call to get in the game....to get out of those stands and onto the playing field where kingdom-life happens. To do less is to be a secret member of the opposition, undermining by our very passivity the play at hand.
A cursory look at today’s doors closing across the country to prayer on school property, posting of the ten commandments or nativity scenes in public forums, traditional Christmas songs in school Christmas programs, and required removal of biblical symbols from city emblems in city after city cannot help but alert us to the cost of side-line living. When even the words one nation under God can no longer stand unchallenged, it is difficult to remain blind to a vital shift in the game afoot.
Don’t mistake these words for a call to activism; they are merely an observation in our own times of the price dearly paid for scattering seed abroad when we failed to be gathering with Christ.
I feel my heart being called anew to these words of Jesus. To ask myself what “he who is not with Me is against Me...” looks like, specifically, in my own daily sojourn. When all is said and done, I don’t want to discover my life was lived scattering abroad.
© DeAnna L. Brooks
18 January 2005
and he who gathers not with Me scatters abroad.”
Matthew12:30
Football season’s rapidly coming to a close with playoffs in full-form. Stadiums are full to capacity. And probably in most homes across the country, family members sit in front of large screens looking glued there as play after play unfolds before their eyes. And when the final score is tallied? They simply move on to the next game with the merest push of a small button.
And it doesn’t change when the season ends, only the sport venue alters....in a never-ceasing cycle with the world looking on while a mere handful of individuals play the game.
We’ve become a society living life, if it can be called life, on the side-lines. How did that happen? When did living change so dramatically? When did we become content with being shuffled aside, no longer being part of the whole? I’m not certain where the answer lies, but I can’t deny it’s the life I live day to day. And I’d bet it pretty well describes your life as well.
God didn’t created man in His own image to be a spectator, to sit contentedly on the side-line of life. Doing so has left the playing field to another team. A team whose goal remains diametrically opposed to the Father’s heart.
Have you ever noticed a unique quality in Jesus? He doesn’t pull punches. Saying it like it is may have rocked some boats, but He left you in little doubt about God’s plan for you. And it doesn’t include the sidelines. Could Jesus have put it any more plainly?
“He who is not with me is against me, and he who gathers not with Me scatters abroad...”
I don’t believe for one minute that Jesus meant rooting for His side cut it when it comes to being with Him. I believe it was a call to get in the game....to get out of those stands and onto the playing field where kingdom-life happens. To do less is to be a secret member of the opposition, undermining by our very passivity the play at hand.
A cursory look at today’s doors closing across the country to prayer on school property, posting of the ten commandments or nativity scenes in public forums, traditional Christmas songs in school Christmas programs, and required removal of biblical symbols from city emblems in city after city cannot help but alert us to the cost of side-line living. When even the words one nation under God can no longer stand unchallenged, it is difficult to remain blind to a vital shift in the game afoot.
Don’t mistake these words for a call to activism; they are merely an observation in our own times of the price dearly paid for scattering seed abroad when we failed to be gathering with Christ.
I feel my heart being called anew to these words of Jesus. To ask myself what “he who is not with Me is against Me...” looks like, specifically, in my own daily sojourn. When all is said and done, I don’t want to discover my life was lived scattering abroad.
© DeAnna L. Brooks
18 January 2005
posted by brooklet | 3:47 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home