Life Takes Practice
A basketball analogy may apply here. A long time ago, I played a lot of basketball, enough to pay for college. When I had a vision of being a basketball player, I began to practice. I played and I practiced. Finally, I practiced and played enough that I felt confident to try out for the freshman team at my high school. Unfortunately, I did not make the team. Despite my basketball shoes, shorts, shirt, and stylish sweatbands, the coaches deemed my skills inadequate for their needs. At 5’10” and 110 pounds, my size and strength were not necessarily assets. But in my mind, these obstacles did not make me anything less than the basketball player I had dreamed of being. I would continue to practice.
After countless more hours of practice, community leagues, and a few more inches of growth, I made the “B Team,” a team for players who were not quite good enough for junior varsity and did not lack enough ability to be cut (again). I excelled there. I made the JV team as starting center the following year, with more practice and more inches. My senior year approached with lots of training and even more height. By now, several fellow players who seemed more skilled, more physically gifted, had dropped out.
My high school career culminated in becoming the starting center on varsity with scholarship offers following. But I wasn’t a more real player than four years earlier. It wasn’t about my level of success. Nor did wearing the school uniform and showing up in the gym make me a basketball player. The key is that no matter how many times I failed, I never considered myself a non-basketball player. My heart was with basketball, so I practiced.
Jesus never divides His followers and non-followers by their levels of success. Nor does He give a set of external qualifiers: uniforms, rites, rituals, or physical appearance. The apostle John writes:
And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. (1 John 3:3-6)
As with success in any life endeavor, it’s not about the externals; it is a matter of the heart. When we truly have a heart dedicated to Christ, it doesn’t mean we’re perfect, though declared perfect in Christ. We are not flawless in every choice, behavior, and habit. But we practice those things that move us in the direction of purified lives in Christ.
Many regularly attend church, use spiritual jargon, and hang in Christian social circles, but they practice for a different life. They have minds fixed on other masters. Ironically, to observers, these folks may appear to be more accomplished than you at the game of “churchianity.” They may perform with all the right moves, but inside, something else defines them. As a result, many of these might drop out at some point or become reflective of Jesus’ statement to those who depended on their good works: “…I never knew you; depart from Me…” (Matthew 7:23).
In the end, it doesn’t matter what others think of you. It makes no sense to compare yourself with the seemingly more spiritual. You know your heart, regardless of the obstacles and stumbles you encounter along the way. You know your identity. So does Jesus. Practice being the best at that you can be, with His help, for His glory.
“By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.” —1 John 3:10