Fantasy Christian

Each week millions of people play Fantasy Football.

Fantasy football is a game in which participants (called "owners") are arranged into a league.

The person who creates the league is called the commissioner, and that person invites other owners into his/her league. Each team drafts or acquires a team of real-life players and then scores points based on those players' peformance on-the-field.

It's a fun way to compete with your friends to see who can predict who'll peform the best when it counts.

What's interesting is that each week a player is given a "projection," or a best guess of to how many points they'll score against their opponent. Some weeks the projection is right on and other weeks the player performs poorly.

The weekly projection got me thinking about my life (and other Christians) and I wonder what projection I'd be given.

Each week we are called to imitate Christ and do our best against our opponent.

I realize we can't do it on our own but our works are a measure of our committment to Christ.

The saddest reality for me is that my Fantasy Football league is just for fun but in real life there are no Fantasy Christians - this game counts.

Today's Walkaway: How are you playing the game? If I were to project how well you'd do next week in your walk with Christ would you score big or be a bust?

True Worship

Big thought for the day - intimacy = reproduction

I heard Ed Young Jr. say yesterday that "true intimacy in worship will result in spiritual reproduction."

That's an amazing line.

Too often we say we are worshipping God BUT our churches, our Christ-like influence is not growing.

There are no spiritual babies.

Paul (writer of much of the New Testament) says in Col. 2 - that they (devoted followers of Christ) be "spiritually mature in Christ."

I trust that when I'm spiritually mature in Christ, I'll be growing in my committment to Christ. And if my committment to Christ is growing I'll have true intimacy with Him. And I pray that as a result of my intimacy with Christ I'll see spiritual reproduction.

Today's Walkaway: How is your intimacy level?

Intimacy is both the ability and the choice to be close, loving, and vulnerable. Intimacy requires identity development.

Take some time today and choose to remember "Who you are," "Whose you are," and "What you're called to do."

That's intimacy!

Brooklyn's #10

My daughter, Brooklyn turned 10 over the weekend.

Wow - 10 years.

We invited 10 of her friends to go rock climbing and had an amazing birthday party for her. Beth and I wanted to make her day special.

Fast forward through the day to bedtime as we are saying our good-night's, Brooklyn told us she had an amazing day.

To hear her talk and see her grin caused me to feel such joy. I find it such an honor to be a parent.

One of the highlights of life is simply to spend time with my children. I think that often times LOVE is spelled TIME.

Happy Birthday Brooklyn