Born to Be: December 2011

Quakkelaar 1

How God is working through Famous Athletes today,

and why you should choose to experience God in your life everyday

Mr. Quakkelaar

Writing 2011-12

Dec. 9, 2011

Quakkelaar 2

Experiencing God Everyday

How God is working through Famous Athletes today,

and why you should choose to experience God in your life everyday

Outline

1. Introduction

2. Kurt Warner, Josh Hamilton testimonies

3. Trusting God/ Use your platform for God

4. Albert Pujols/ Believing God will help you do hard things

5. Jesus’ life

6. Living for Christ

7. Conclusion

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We all have heard of God. Some people don’t believe he exists, others believe he is real, but don’t really trust him in their everyday life. Professional athletes face big challenges. Some just shrug off their responsibilities, others misuse their status, and wealth. But some have found a greater purpose for their lives. God’s will. They have realized that the best use of their skills, status, and their lives, is to shine the light of God’s love to as many people as God brings into contact with them, and their lives. To experience God every day, you need to start with a relationship with Jesus Christ. He died to save us from our sins. Once we accept that, and believe it, we can experience God in our lives every day.

Some people have never experienced God’s hand in their lives, others don’t realize, or chose not to believe, that what has happened in their lives is God’s working. Most Americans fall into one or the other of these groups. But, there is a small percentage, of Americans, which is especially small among the very popular, famous, and rich, that look for God in their lives and follow him wherever he leads. Kurt Warner, a Super Bowl champion, says, in his book, All Things Possible, “Did I want to succeed for myself, or was there a larger purpose? I told him we felt like God was opening a door for us.”He looked for God’s will and followed it. Later, when talking about his life and what made the difference, he said “I needed simply to put my life in God’s hands”. In Josh Hamilton’s book, Beyond Belief: Finding the Strength to come back, he tells how he went from a top prospect to a drug addict and then all the way back to being an all-star baseball player, he says he went to all the best addiction correction centers, tried to stop drugs for himself, his family, and baseball. But nothing, not a single one of those things, could keep him clean for long. Until he made the decision to trust his life to Jesus Christ, and let God work in him, and then he took the long road to recovery from there. The power he gained over the temptations he felt, when he said bible verses, was amazing, he said James 4:7 summarizes what saved him, it says “Submit yourselves, then to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” When he was tempted by alcohol, or drugs, Josh said that he thought of this verse and told the devil, he wasn’t going to give in to these temptations, and to leave him. Tim Tebow, Albert Pujols, what do these men have in common? Outspoken Christianity? Trust and

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obedience of God? Both of these men have taken their skills, abilities, and audience, and used them to glorify God. Tebow says, “You’re going to be great, but give it all to the Lord” we need to keep our focus on God, by keeping him central in our lives. When we focus on God, he works in wonderful ways, Henry T. Blackaby says in Experiencing God,

“In 1986, when the World’s Fair was coming to Vancouver, our association of churches was convinced God wanted us to try and reach the 22 million people who would come to the fair. We had about two thousand members in our churches in the greater Vancouver area. How in the world could two thousand people make a great impact on such a mass of tourist from all over the world? Both youth and adults had some exciting ideas. Two years before the fair we began to set our plans in motion. At that time, the total income for our whole association was $9 thousand. The following year our income was about $16 thousand. For the year of the World’s Fair, we took a leap of faith and set a budget for $202 thousand. We had commitments that would probably provide 35 percent of that budget; 65 percent of the budget was dependent on prayer. Can you operate a budget on prayer? Yes. But when you do that, you are attempting something only God can do. What do most of us do? We set the practical budget, which is the total of what we can do. Then we set a hope or faith budget. The budget we generally trust and use, however, is the one we can reach by ourselves. We do not really trust God to do anything. As an association of churches, we decided that God had definitely led us to the work that would cost $202 thousand. That became our operating budget. All of our people began praying for God to provide and to guide us in doing everything we believed He wanted us to do during the World’s Fair. At the end of the year, I asked our treasurer how much money we had received. From Canada, the United States, and other parts of the world, we had received $264 thousand. But people did more than give money. They came from all over the world to assist us. During the course of the fair, we became a catalyst to see almost 20 thousand people come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. God had truly moved—far beyond anyone’s expectations!

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We cannot explain what happened at the World’s Fair except in terms of God’s intervention. Only God could have accomplished those results. And how did God do it? He did it with believers of all ages who had determined to be servants, who were moldable, flexible, and available for the Master’s use.”

This is an example of God working in everyday people. If we set our goals, no if we set goals, to high for us to achieve, that is; to achieve by ourselves. We should put our goals where they will show God working through us, to impact our world today.

Sometimes we see unbelievers experiencing success, and Christians struggling. This is something that God is using, what will we do when we go through trials? Will we say ‘hey, God, I’m a good guy, I’m a Christian, why is this happening to me, I’m not sinning, this should be happening to all those other people who are sinning. This isn’t fair.’ Or do we look at the Bible, for example in James 1:2-3 “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” Albert Pujols in his book, Pujols: More than the game;

“Does being a Christian make a difference when the storms of life hit? “Albert has his struggles. He struggles with a lot of things,” Perry says, “If it wasn’t for the Lord he’d be a completely different person, because I think there are certain personality traits in Albert – as in me – that can war against the spiritual side” The Bible teaches a Christian to “count it all joy” when trials come into one’s life because “You know the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4). Trials refine Christians, molding them into the likeness of Christ.”

We need to look at how easy we have it; Pujols lives his life under a microscope. I think they could find fault with us much easier than they can with Albert, he accepts the challenge as an opportunity to live out his faith. We need to live like we are under a microscope, like if we have a bad day, throw a fit, yell at someone, that the next day what happened is breaking news,

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and everybody is saying “oh, he can’t control his anger” or “he isn’t a real Christian, because he yelled at someone yesterday”. We have the luxury of free speech; however, we need to put up limits for ourselves, so we don’t grow into the habit of doing what “everyone else” is doing. We need to stand out. To do hard things. To let the world see Christ shining through us. That is what we need to be living for.

If you haven’t believed in Jesus, you need to know more about him. He died to save you. He came to earth, was born to a virgin, taught, healed and then he died on a cross. But then he rose from the grave, defeating death and Satan, and ascending to Heaven where he is now sitting at the right hand of God. You can go to heaven forever if you put your trust in Jesus Christ. Believe in him, and he will send his Holy Spirit to live in you. If you haven’t committed your life to Christ, Stop, right now, and pray. Tell Jesus that you believe he died to save you from your sins, rose from the grave, and is now sitting with God in Heaven. Then the Holy Spirit will come and dwell in you, and you can begin to experience God in your everyday life!

When we live for Jesus Christ, we start to look at life differently. We begin to look out for others, to show unnecessary kindness to others, and to steer our lives toward the work God is doing in the world around us. We start to look for God, and then change our lives, to follow Him as he works. Like it says in Romans 12:1, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” We do everything to glorify God, and to further his kingdom. When we speak, act, and even when we think, it should be like how God, speaks, acts, and thinks. If we truly accept Jesus, the Holy Spirit dwells in us. It helps us to be like God, and to follow his work in the world around us. God has given all of us different gifts, Romans 12:3-8 says

“For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. ⁴ For just as each of us has one body with many

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members, and these members do not all have the same function, ⁵ so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. ⁶ We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with yourfaith; ⁷ if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; ⁸ if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.”

God came to earth, suffered, and died to save us. We should share the story of salvation with as many people as we can. We need to take the platform we are given, and use it to spread the good news, Christ saved us, now we show whether or not we truly believe that by what we do. These men do. They are using their platform to change lives, by living out the truth of God’s unending love.