Step Confidently Into Newness of Life
According to the BJSM:
"Knee injury accounts for 41% of all sports injuries. One fifth of them involve the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). Other injuries include meniscus tears, posterior cruciate ligament tears, articular cartilage damages and avulsion of ligaments and tendons."
To address that staggering number of knee injuries, it's estimated that there are over 800,000 total knee replacement surgeries performed each year in the U.S. alone (not including the hundreds of thousands of "lesser" knee repair surgeries).
Post-surgical healing and rehabilitation can take weeks, if not months, to complete. Ultimately, most people see significant improvement. Yet many people report that they are hesitant to use their new knee(s), frearful of trusting it to support them or fearful of re-injuring themselves. For example:
Once I was up early going through my morning routine playing basketball with a friend, when all of a sudden I turned the wrong way, and tore my ACL. After months of rehab, I went out to play light ball just to see if I could do it. I moved around on the court as if I were still injured -- I had not adapted to a healed ACL!
The coach (and my doctors and therapists) told me I could move, but mentally I was afraid to move the leg. subconsciously controlled by my fear of getting injured. I went into protection mode because fear had gripped me.
I was protecting, not realizing or acknowledging that I had a new knee.
We often protect what's been previously injured thinking that it will happen again. I had to ask my self why I was not willing to use the new knee. It's because I had not yet adapted to the new me.
Many of us limp into the Kingdom, bruised, battered, and lame from the brokenness of past lifestyles, sins, and hurtful experiences. We come to Jesus, asking healing for our brokenness, and He is doesn't let us down. In fact, Scripture states, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17, ESV).
God calls us to live in light of our newness of life. Why walk and limp through life when your very being has been made utterly new. "[You] were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." (Ephesians 4:21b-24, ESV).
Step out confidently in faith, without fear, to walk in newness of life!
"For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline." (2 Timothy 1:7, NLT).
Expensive Cardboard
When Super Bowl LV kicked off between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Kansas City Chiefs, Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida looked full with the help of some fake fans.
Due to the ongoing pandemic, the NFL had approximately 25,000 in the stadium for the 55th Super Bowl, far fewer than the 70,000 fans that attended the big game the last time it was held in Tampa.
To make up the difference, the NFL produced 30,000 cardboard cutouts of fans to fill most of the remaining seats.
Unlike other sporting events where the cardboard cutouts are all bunch together in some areas of the stadium, the fake Super Bowl fans were spread out to keep the real fans socially distant.
The NFL charged each fan $100 to have their face placed on one of the cardboard cutouts. That's a cool $3 million in revenue to make up for some of the lost ticket and concession sales.
When I look at the faces on those cutouts all I can think of are the many who fill the pews every Sunday, pretending to be something they’re not. They appear to be there but they’re really somewhere else. They’re there to fulfill an obligation but not to worship. They seem to have it all together but it’s all an illusion. They want to be seen but not known. They have all of the zeal and passion of a cardboard cutout. They pretend to be alive but they're dead. They’ve made it a practice to be religious but what they really need is to be born again.
Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God" (John 3:3, NLT).
•Application by I.E.
When Your Gage Reads "E"
If your car gas gauge is on E and you stopped at the gas station and filled the car up, what do you expect the gas gauge to read? You put gas in it so you expect it to show F. What would you think if it was still on E?
How do you think God feels when He gave His Son and it doesn't show? You invited Him into your heart and yet there is no evidence of Him being there.
You invited Jesus Christ into your life… does it show?
Was your life transformed by His son?
Where is the needle on the spiritual gauge of your heart? If Jesus is there, it should always read F.
"Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test? (2 Corinthians 13:5).