Richard Dawson, 3 February 2015

Last week I compared our Christian journey to Cricket and I pointed out that the end colours everything about the game. To some this may have sounded harsh. It may have sounded very performance-oriented and as if God were pretty hard to please. Can I assure you that the opposite is indeed true. God is not nearly as interested in our ‘performance’ as he is in our ‘position.’ A Christian’s position is ‘with Christ’ and if we get out of this position, no amount of ‘performance’ will gain for us what being with Christ can give us. In cricket the position of fielders is absolutely key to winning the game. Fielders in the right position can make an enormous difference to how many runs the batting side makes and, of course, vice versa. Simply being in a certain place makes preventing runs much easier. For a Christian, being ‘with’ Christ is the aim of our game. In many ways nothing else matters because once we attain to this position our lives will begin changing in so many good ways.
In my family of origin Fish and Chips on Fridays was something of a tradition and Fran and I carried this on to a certain extent (we extend the menu slightly these days!) The point is that everyone in the family enjoyed these meals and looked forward to them and no one had to do
anything to earn them. If you were in our house this was what you got on Fridays (so long as you wanted them.) All you had to do was turn up. In many ways the same is true of Christ. When we are ‘with’ Him then all His becomes ours.
Are you in this position today?