Hello, this is pastor gary from first baptist church of laplata. Springtime is baseball season. I don’t care much for professional sports—especially with how political they have become; however, I did notice a story about a Philadelphia Phillies player who was up to bat and got hit in the face with a 97 mph fast ball! That’s got to hurt, and I’m quite sure it left a mark. After getting hit, Bryce Harper left the field under his own power and later posted a message on social media that he was fine and tests showed no broken bones. It is amazing how resilient God created our bodies to be! While this player took a bad hit, he gets paid a lot of money to take that risk; the Apostle Paul had it much worse. He describes for us in II Corinthians 11:24-25 some of his sufferings for the cause of Christ: “Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once I was stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck: a night and a day I have been in the deep.” The conventional wisdom of Paul’s day was that 40 stripes would kill a man; so, they would give 40 minus one, or 39 whips, to get the punished up to the point of death yet remaining alive: Paul had this 5 different times! Paul volunteered his body as a sacrifice for the furtherance of the Gospel of Christ, yet we modern Christians think we are suffering for Christ if the sanctuary temperature is too hot or too cold or if the pews aren’t comfortable enough. Let us commit to serve at any cost and pay any price to fulfill the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Leave a Reply