Win, Lose or Draw

It’s game night with friends and you pull out the old game Win, Lose or Draw. It’s similar to charades where you pick a word and then, instead of acting out the words, you draw clues. If your teammates answer correctly, you get points in hopes of winning.

This is not life right now. No one is having to guess the words that we are thinking. They are put clearly in black and white for all to see. There are a lot of people losing and not many winning. You may think so, but I have learned that you can win and still very much lose.

In grade school I used to get together with my friends to play football, baseball, basketball...really any thing with a ball! Two kids would be captain and they would pick teams. I’m sure I’m dredging up bad memories for some of you! I never wanted to be captain because of the choices you had to make. You want to win, but not at the expense of hurting feelings. I felt like it was a lose-lose scenario.

Sure we would celebrate after a win, but there was still that tinge of regret and fear that I may have lost more than what I won along the way.

You can win the game and still lose.
You can win the race, but lose your integrity.
You can win the argument, but lose a friend.
You can win the battle, but lose the war.
You can win the world, but still lose your soul!

Jeanne Mayo, youth pastor coach extraordinaire said, “Anything you compromise to gain you will eventually lose.”

If we aren’t careful, we may very well compromise our Kingdom walk for a political, social, or economic walk.

Remember, we don’t wrestle against flesh and blood. Identify your foe. Let me give you a clue, it’s not your neighbor. We, friends, have an enemy working overtime to steal, kill, and destroy. He is working overtime to divide the church. From my vantage point, he is winning.

Church, instead of having calloused hearts, let’s have calloused knees. Let’s put in some overtime prayer. Let’s do some warfare. Matthew 11:12 says, “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it.” Let’s fight back against the Devil.

This is a battle, not the war. The war was won on a cross two thousand years ago!

Let me finish by echoing the words of Amy Charmichael, “Let nothing be said about anyone unless it passes through the three sieves: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?”

God’s heartbeat is people. Our heart must break for the things that break His! Our heartbeat must be people. Through Christ and through the Holy Spirit, we can unify around the cross. Unity can be very diverse and complex and still be whole. Look at our own bodies, each part unique and yet still whole.

Let’s make Christ the head once again. Keep Him in that place in your life, above all else. In the words of my pastor, “let’s keep the main thing, the main thing.”

With much love.