Tag: life

Is Ball Life?

To say “ball is life” is to present it as an idol.

LucasTelfordLeave a comment
So this crossed my mind today and I thought about throwing it out there so here ya go.
 
I have long be a proponent of changing the way we speak when it comes to spiritual matters because I believe that our words can condemn us or justify us.
Matthew 12:36-27 “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
I am a coach and an athlete (well kind of) still and I look deeply at the players and teammates that I am impacting with my words and actions. I think carefully when I refer to that building where everyone goes on Sunday as “church”, because it’s not ya know. I have been a pastor of a church for the last 5 years and we have never used the term, “let’s go to church”, mostly because I see the Church as the body of believers that are working to bring life to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I digress though. 
What I do hear quite often from young athletes is “ball is life”, when referring to the game of basketball. Every time that I hear that I think to myself, “Is it?”, is it really LIFE? I know, I know, it is just a phrase that people use. It is just a saying that the kids are #hashtagging all over the place and it is just some words after all. Well our words have consequences. Our pursuit of the #ballislife mentality has kingdom consequences for those young people claiming Jesus as their Savior.
To say “ball is life” is to present it as an idol. Samuel gives caution to this which is still so relevant today.
 1 Samuel 12:21 21 Do not turn away after useless idols. They can do you no good, nor can they rescue you, because they are useless.
Matthew Henry describes that verse like this, “for if you turn aside from God, whatever you turn aside to, you will find it is a vain thing, that can never answer your expectations, but will certainly deceive you if you trust to it; it is a broken reed, a broken cistern.Idols could not profit those that sought to them in their wants, nor deliver those that sought to them in their straits, for they were vain, and not what they pretended to be.
I think we can learn a big lesson here.
In the book of John it says this…
John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

The word life in this context means “the state of one who is possessed of vitality or is animate”. Are we therefore animated by the bound synthetic leather nature of a spherical object used for the accomplishment of recreation with the occasional promise of fleeting glory that is a trophy or a scholarship? None of that promise can match up to the promise of an eternal existence with the one true God. Yet we continue “ball is life”.

James describes the tongue as the smallest of rudders that can control a gigantic ship, no matter the storms that ship faces. Our words matter.  What we say matters. The face that we present matters. Think about that the next time you say you LOVE pizza or your LOVE the “insert major athletic team in here” that you are expressing LOVE for an object in the same way you say you love your mother or father, wife or husband, or most importantly how you LOVE Jesus Christ. It can become cheapened real quick if you think about it that way. Our words matter.

To round out this little chat let me leave you with this. We can easily be turned away from the things of God because we allow the things of the world to creep in. If you read this and you use the #balllislife for anything may the Lord prick your heart a little every time so that you may feel the vastness of that statement on an eternal scale. If you read this and you have never heard of or seen #ballislife or have no idea why I keep putting the pound sign in front of those words without spaces in between, let me just say this. Our words matter and our lives should hinge only on the things of the Lord, your job, your wife, your family all pale in the grand scheme of things when Jesus is LIFE.