Daily Devotional

In my final year of coaching high school basketball, we were leading the league late in the year. It had been a long 7 years in rebuilding the program at Reedley HS. The league was strong, with usually three of our teams in the top ten in the valley, most often, Hanford, Redwood & Mt Whitney.

The following year Jim Blied would move up from coaching the JV team to being the varsity coach. He would inherit an incoming freshman who helped take them to the valley finals eventually.

But in 1980 we were leading the league. We beat Hanford at Hanford by 30 points! Then in our notoriety, something happened. The newspaper accounts did not please all my players. Some began to take offense in their pride against other team members getting better press. Before long the team was fractured into three separate factions of players vying for dominance and attention. A few games later, Hanford came to our gym in Reedley, and beat us by 30 points! A 60-point differential from the earlier encounter in Hanford!

The Lord Jesus declared that a house divided against itself will not be able to stand. Instead of being one team, we were three. We were no longer only playing against the opponent, we were also playing against ourselves! The outcome of such a stare is predictable, and a thing of both sorrow and loss to everyone involved with the team.

If a basketball team divided against itself will not be able to stand, how about a marriage, or family? What about a business, a club, or even a church? What of a city?

But let us be encouraged. The opposite is also true. A husband and wife united in Christ will stand! It will weather anything! It will bear fruit and be esteemed before God and man. A cord of three strands us not quickly torn apart. (Ecclesiastes 4:12, NASB)

A church with Jesus as the head, the body loving one another, moving in the Spirit, children of God before the Father, will prevail and prosper continually. Jesus said of the church, “The gates of Hades will not overpower it. (Matthew 16:18, NASB)

So let us go forward in faith, and make it so. Especially at Campus. Let us allow nothing to hinder us or turn us back. All things are possible to him who believes. (Mark 9:23, NASB)  

READ: Ephesians 2:11–22
SING: "The Family of God" by Bill & Gloria Gaither

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