I’m a
sports fan and since moving back to Phoenix
I've followed the St. Louis baseball Cardinals since moving there in 1988. But in the past couple of years I've been paying more and more attention to the D-Backs. I like their new front office executives and their manager seems to be top-notch. When we attended the Cardinals & D-Backs game on the 4th of July I found myself pulling for Paul Goldschmidt and the guys!
However, if you were a Cardinals fan, a must-read was the book, “Three Nights in August,” by
noted author, Buzz Bissinger. The book
is about a three game series that took place in 2003 between the Cards and
their biggest rivals, the Chicago Cubs.
Bissinger gives us the opportunity to see a baseball game through the
eyes of the manager. From the stands, we
see the players on the field. Bissinger
lets us view the game from the dugout.
We see the game from the manager’s perspective. We learn why and how LaRussa plots strategy
and makes decisions during the game. The
book provides an eyewitness account of what it is like to manage a baseball
team during an important series. I just
had to read this book!
The Bible
was written by people who were eyewitnesses or by those who were able to speak
and learn from the people who saw the things God did and heard the things God
said. The gospel writer Luke puts it
like this: Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have
been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from
the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.” Luke, not an eyewitness himself, received
testimony from those who were eyewitnesses and were dedicated to telling others
about Jesus. Luke wasn’t interested in
the opinions others had about Christ. He
wanted to write about the facts regarding Jesus’ teachings and miracles, His
suffering, death and resurrection. He
wanted to get it right. And so he spoke
to those who had seen and heard Jesus.
He spoke to eyewitnesses.
The apostle
Peter, in his second letter, teaches that we can trust the accounts we’ve heard
about Jesus because “we did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told
you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were
eyewitnesses of His majesty.” Just think
of some of the things Peter saw after he responded to Jesus’ call to be a
“fisher of men.” Peter witnessed Jesus
raising the synagogue ruler’s daughter from the dead; he saw the glorified
Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration; he looked on as Jesus suffered at the
hands of Pontius Pilate; he saw the crucified Jesus and the resurrected
Jesus. Peter was an eyewitness of all
these things.
It’s these
eyewitness accounts that help us to truly believe that the Bible is the Word of
God. It gives testimony that the Father
is the maker and creator of all things; that the Son suffered, died and rose
again so that whoever would believe in Him would not perish but have
everlasting life; that the Spirit moved the writers to record all these things
so that you, too, might believe that God’s promises of forgiveness and
salvation are real and that they are for you.
If you are a follower of Christ Jesus or if your desire to know Jesus as
the only Savior and Lord, grab your Bible.
It’s a must-read!
A "Wake Up With The Word" devotion for 2009
