Faith Matters | In life, it doesn’t matter how many times you strike out. God does not keep score
In his 21 year career Reggie Jackson became the 14th all-time home run leader as his teams won five World Series championships. He was an American League All-Star for 14 seasons. He won two Silver Slugger Awards, the American League Most Valuable Player Award in 1973, and two World Series Most Valuable Player Awards. In 1993, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
There is one honor, however, that rarely gets mentioned. Of the roughly 20,000 players to have played during Major League Baseball’s nearly 150-year existence, Reggie Jackson ranks No. 1 in strik outs. He is the all-time strikeout king!
But the funny thing is … that’s not how he’s remembered. He’s remembered as one of the greatest baseball players of all time. No one defines Reggie Jackson by his failures.
We save that kind of judgment for ourselves.
It’s an interesting thing about us Christians. It doesn’t seem to matter how many home runs we hit or how many victories we have, we perpetually focus on where we’ve failed. We suffer with feelings of spiritual inferiority by comparing ourselves to others. We are haunted by our past sins. And we are defeated by the sins we currently can’t gain victory over.
Living like this leaves Christians powerless, discouraged and angry. We walk around with an albatross of failure draped around our neck, unable to find the victory, peace, and joy we’re searching for. What’s worse, this isn’t how God designed us to live.
Romans 8:1 states, “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” That means we no longer have to suffer the penalty for our sin. God has heard our case and the charges have been dismissed. But we don’t act like it. It’s almost as if the bailiff opens the doors to the courthouse to let us go free but we willingly walk back to our cell.
Why do most of us live this way? Because we fail to recognize the power that is within.
Paul states in Romans 8:11 that “the same power that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you.” The word “dwells’”means ‘home.’ Paul is reminding defeated Christians that the Almighty God of the universe has taken up residence in our hearts. We don’t have to be powerless to the failures of our past or the ungodly habits of the present. We can choose to believe verses like Psalm 103:12 that says “as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” Or Micah 7:19 that states, “He will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.”
Because the Holy Spirit dwells in us we have a choice in what happens next. We have the choice to live in our past or trust God for the future. We have the choice to focus on our failures or see God’s victory. We have the choice to see ourselves as champions or strikeout kings.
In God’s eyes it doesn’t matter how many times you’ve struck out. He doesn’t keep those kinds of stats.
Faith Matters is written by members of the Bradenton clerical community. Phillip Hamm is senior pastor at First Baptist Church of Palmetto.