Day 37 - The Tournament Cometh…
In a land far, far away, and a high-school basketball tournament long, long ago, one particular high school team learned an important lesson the hard way. It pays to be prepared.
This particular high school team was not known as a basketball powerhouse. It was a small school and the talent pool was limited.
Every year this small school would participate in a regional tournament. As the tournament began, the coach attended the early games to scout future opponents. Sadly, only one student athlete bothered to watch the other teams in action.
The coach came, but the team players didn’t. The results were, to say the least, devastating. When this school played in the tournament, they were not beaten–they were annihilated! Losing by seven points in basketball is a wide margin of victory. They were humiliated by seventy (70) points. I’m sure it was painful to watch.
As followers of Jesus, the tournament is coming. The tournament is not athletic competition but the challenges and questions that our culture fires at us as Christians! We better know our opposition well enough to defend our faith and be ready to answer the questions that unsaved people are asking. If we don’t prepare, we’ll be “blown out†in our culture’s tournament of ideas.
The resulting lose won’t be a game, but the heart and mind of a seeker that turns away from Christ because we couldn’t give them a reason to believe. The tournament of truth has already started in our culture.
As a faithful team player, will you be in the bleachers, scouting the opposition?
Today’s Scripture Promise: “…always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” (I Peter 3:15)