Quarterbacks

I talk to so many folks who love Jesus, but who are sort of limping through life. They just kinda cross the finish line at the end of each day; emotions frayed, faith unhinged and feeling dead on the inside. And hey, I know exactly how that feels. When I’m in the middle of that, I always feel like everything hurts. People’s comments condemn you, your schedule oppresses you and the futures scares you. It really feels like being on edge and here’s the deal: it’s all from the Enemy. He’s got you right where he wants you.

You see, when you’re in a spiritual stalemate and you feel like an emotional time bomb, you’re basically getting hit by the same old tricks that oily, old, spectral thug always pulls out again and again. Satan lies about who you are and reminds you of who you were. That’s it. that’s all he does. You see how that works? If you forget the promises of God concerning you, every new trial is a catastrophe with no solution. If you are constantly aware of how you’ve screwed up those trials in the past, you’re going to feel like a guilty, pathetic pile of nothing that ought to just get back in the bed. The thing we have to figure how to do is is turn those tricks on their head.

In other words, a Christian has to be kind of like a good quarterback… Now, I know that as soon as I say that, I’m gonna have to break it down a bit since not everyone out there in the tumblrverse watches American Football (one of the reasons I pray for you guys all the time). The quarterback is basically running the show on the field in a football game. He is the one who gets the ball first and he has to decide where it’s going and then he has to get it there. So much of what happens depends on what he does. Now, a really good quarterback has to have a very selective memory. What that means is, he has to remember a lot of things about what he can do and how the plays work and what’s possible, but he has to be able to forget what’s actually happened so that he can put the bad plays that have happened behind him.

The Enemy of your soul is going to try to make you forget who you are, but we need to be constantly reminding ourselves what Jesus says about us and what’s possible because of His life inside us. The Enemy will remind you of your past sins all day long, but Jesus has forgiven and forgotten them. It’s time we forget them too. Keeping your spiritual fervor is about having that selective memory that unravels the schemes of the devil. Forget who you were and remember who you are.

As Paul said in Philippians 3:13-14, “One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”