Playing with Dress-Up Jesus

“As for me, if I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all people to myself."---Jesus

I have coached soccer and softball for little kids and the thing I love so much about it all, is that this age focuses on fundamentals. The point is to ground them into the basics and then as they progress, their own talents and personalities can adapt to the fundamental skills they have learned. As an athlete, you can never forsake the fundamentals. If you do, you are in trouble. It’s a sign of arrogance, saying, “I can do it on my own; my way.”

There are times that a team will begin to play below average with no rhythm and unity leaving behind a losing streak a mile long. As a coach you watch and analyze the team as a whole and think of ways to adapt the talent to the goals of the team. Sometimes it can be fixed with switching up a few positions or playing around with the batting order. However, there are times when the whole sink needs to be pulled out from the wall.

The only option is to return to the basics; the fundamentals. Get your team back to doing what they did at first; go back to the beginning: have them relearn the basics and have them run the fundamental drills of the game over and over until they can once again do it without thinking about it. The basics once again become a natural outflow of what they have learned.

As the church, it’s time for a return to the fundamentals. We’ve played dress-up for far too long and added so many things to Jesus that we can’t even recognize him because of all the additions. He’s in there somewhere. I really believe he is. To add something to Jesus is to lose Jesus all together. Jesus alone is able and worthy of all our attention. He is worthy of our life.