The baseball season in long. The teams play 162 games over six months. The the playoffs begin. The World Series caps the season in late October - a season that began in February when pitchers and catchers reported to Spring Training.
Being in the lead of your division at any point in the season is an accomplishment, but the only lead that matters is after 162 games. The Reds have been five games out of first place this year. They've also been up by five games this year. The long season has an ebb and flow of wins and losses. Leads are built, diminished, and lost. In the end, the champion is not the team that scored the most runs or stole the most bases or had the longest winning streak. The championship pennant goes to the team with the best record over the long season.
My life has its ups and downs, too. I've had some winning streaks but I've also wallowed in the cellar some. Taken in narrow slices, you might conclude that my life is a huge success or a grand failure depending upon which slice you see.
God sees my life - and yours - as a whole. He notices the ups and downs, the victories and defeats, the good and the bad. But he doesn't pull the plug on us until the season is over. Then he may not pull the plug at all.
Jesus Christ died for your sins and mine. He had to because God demands punishment for our sins. That punishment is death - eternal separation from God. Yet God loves us so much that he desires to redeem us rather than punish us. So in order to meet his just demands for punishment of sins, Jesus died to take the punishment. So we don't have to!
Now, God extends an offer to each of us that, if accepted, sets us on a winning path. God freely offers salvation to everyone who will confess that Jesus is Lord. That means you repent of (turn from) your sins and follow Jesus. When you accept the free gift of salvation your unrighteousness is replaced with Christ's righteousness so that when Judgment Day comes you'll be found right with God.
Along the way you'll experience the ups and downs. You'll have amazing hit streaks. You'll commit some errors. You'll win some battles and lose some. But in the end God won't look at a scorecard to see how you've done. He'll look at a book that has written in it the names of all the redeemed.
Sure, I want my scorecard to look pretty good. But I want my name written in that book. And I know that it is because I have by faith accepted Jesus as my Savior and Lord. That's the only way any of us can know we are right with God and saved by his grace.
Now, I'm rooting for you to follow Christ and press on to the end, and I'm rooting for the Reds to press on to win the pennant.
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