Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:3
We walked off the soccer field that day victors, but you would never know it by the reaction from the losing team. In fact, if you had just walked onto the field and seen us exchanging handshakes you would have thought they had just won the match.
We had more goals and we were clearly the better team. Our players were bigger, faster, stronger, and more talented. We controlled the ball keeping it on their side of the field almost the entire game.
But though we should have won by a much larger margin (only winning by one goal), we could not seem to break the game open. Their defenders blanketed our best players throughout. Their goalie (the shortest kid on the field) made heroic plays to defend her goal. Their coach barked orders and shouted words of encouragement from beginning to end. The team fought hard with guts and determination till the last whistle sounded.
In the end they felt they had won, though their victory had little to do with the scoreboard. They felt they had proved to be the better team. Their coach was exultant praising his players, slapping them all on the back, giving high fives all around. The team fed off his enthusiasm and praise. The players congratulated each other and stood proud and tall as they walked off the field. They didn’t feel like the losing team that day. No, not at all, for in their minds they had won.
The kingdom of heaven is made up of losers. We’re not the strong. We’re weak and frail. We’re not the victorious (in many respects). Our statistics are not impressive in the end. In fact the scoreboard will show the devil has defeated us by a wide margin.
For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last, as men condemned to death, for we have been made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men… To the present hour we both hunger and thirst, and we are poorly clothed and beaten, and homeless. And we labor, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless, being persecuted, we endure; being defamed, we entreat. We have been made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things until now. (1 Corinthians 4:9, 11-13)
Our team is not pretty. We’re the rejects. We have all the players the world wouldn’t take. We’re small and pitiful. We have little talent. We’re simply out-manned in this contest.
But our Coach is not ashamed of us. In fact He could not be more proud. While we struggle, with blood and sweat and tears streaming down our faces, our Coach stands on the sideline beaming from ear to ear. He cheers and praises His team urging us to keep going.
And the praise of our Coach is all we desire. We know what the scoreboard says but it does little to take away from our enthusiasm. We’re counted as losers by the world but we won’t quit. We know in our hearts that we’re the true victors. Our Coach has a different way of keeping score, and He has us winning by a wide margin!
So we scratch and claw and fight and endure and suffer and hold on until the final whistle blows. Because we know that when that whistle sounds (the trumpet of the Lord) we’ll walk victoriously off the playing field (the earth), knowing that when we come to the sidelines (heaven) we’ll be met by the wide smile of our Coach (Jesus Christ) and hear those words of praise, “Well done!”
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written:
“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:35-39
~ by David Maxson