Batter Up!

It is playoffs time for Major League Baseball. Over the years baseball has changed and evolved. What began as one league in 1876 with eight teams is now two leagues, the National and the American, with thirty teams. Up until 1920 pitchers could alter the ball itself with things like spit or tar. Doing so today will get a pitcher fined and suspended. Batters were once permitted to use flat sided bats. Today, of course all bats are round, no longer than forty-two inches, made of ash, maple, or birch wood.

Baseball stadiums look and smell nothing like they did in years past. Outfields have been shortened to allow for more homeruns. Those generic cookie cutter round stadiums of the 1970s have been replaced by stadiums that provide fans with a “gameday experience,” rather than just watching the game with a hotdog, Cracker Jacks, and an overpriced lukewarm beer. Even the playoffs continue to change and evolve. This year, the playoffs have expanded from five teams in each league to six teams.

Just as the game of baseball continues to evolve with the intent to make the game better and safer for the players and more enjoyable for the fans, we too need to look at our own lives and evaluate what is and is not working. We need to look for ways to continually improve ourselves. We should always be a work in progress, seeking to become a better version of ourselves. The ability to do that comes from the Holy Spirit. If you are a follower of Jesus, you are called to become like Jesus. In 1 Peter 2:21 we read – “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.”

When you said “yes” to Jesus, you also said “yes” to the Holy Spirit. He lives in you, desiring to guide your every step and thought – “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?” (1 Corinthians 3:16).

I believe that after we initially receive the Spirit upon conversion, we need future fillings, and even though the Spirit lives within every Jesus-follower, there is a problem. We leak and continuously need to be refilled with the Spirit’s presence – “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,” (Ephesians 5:18).

Be filled with the Spirit. Literally, be continuously filled with the Spirit. Be filled with the Spirit is one imperative, one command. And when we are under the influence of the Spirit, rather than under the influence of alcohol, it will result in five things – “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:19-21).

As you step up to the plate today, tomorrow and every day, ask God’s Spirit to put His finger on those areas in your life that need to be re-tooled and re-manufactured, made better or changed, maybe even discarded. Ask Him to guide you and help you turn from a life focused on the desires of your flesh to more fully walking by the Spirit. (Read Galatians 5.) Ask Him to refill your leaky cup with His Spirit. In Ephesians 3:19, the apostle Paul prays that the faithful in Christ Jesus will be “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Is that your prayer today?

Batter Up!

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