Guard Your Heart (Part 2)

The key to guarding your heart is understanding that you are a child of God.

1 John 3:1-3 says, “1How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears,[a]we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure."

Understanding who we are in Christ is essential if we are going to live the way he wants us to live on planet earth. Jesus has set a pretty high standard for His followers and that standard in none other than Himself. In fact, the evidence that we are in Him is the fact that we live like Him. 1 John 2:5b-6 says, “This is how we know we are in Him: (6) Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did.

Proper thinking always precedes and leads to proper conduct. As a young man aspiring to earn a basketball scholarship at FSU, I was constantly told by people that I could not fulfill my dream. For example, when I quit playing football in high school to focus solely on honing my basketball skills, our athletic director and head football coach told me, “You will never amount to anything in basketball.”

Trying to become a great basketball player in a football city was quite difficult. Tallahassee is not exactly a hotbed for college basketball recruiting. Basketball players in this city are at a disadvantage when it comes to getting the exposure needed for signing a scholarship.

Do to the lack of competition, exposure and people who believed in me, I found myself questioning my ability to play big time college basketball. Because of this, I signed early before my senior year with a small Division 1 School named Mercer which is located in Macon, Georgia. After a successful freshman year, I decided to transfer to FSU without a guarantee of a scholarship. During the summer before my sophomore year, one of FSU players decided to transfer to James Madison. I had been playing pick-up games all summer with the FSU team and doing very well. Coach Kennedy watched one of these games when I made six three pointer in a row. So, to make a long story short, I was offered a scholarship to play basketball at FSU right before the fall semester of 1988.

Even though I had been playing well in pick up games, I still was not sure if I could play college basketball at the highest level. My first game as a Seminole was our Midnight Madness scrimmage game. I remember sitting in the locker room after midnight (my time of night) with butterflies in my stomach and chill bumps on my skin as I listened to Coach Kennedy’s pre-game speech with the crowd cheering in the background. We were a preseason top twenty team and had one of the best guards, George McCloud, in the country running the point for us.

Before I ran out on the court, I went to the mirror and stared at the uniform I was wearing. I reflected on how I had dreamed about this moment all of my life and my journey to become a team member for the Seminoles. As I continued to stare at my uniform, all of a sudden a peace entered my heart and a sense of confidence began to resonate in my mind. The Seminole uniform was a sign to me that I belonged on the team. I went out and scored sixteen points scrimmaging against a team that would remain in the top ten throughout the year.

Romans 8:15-17 says, "15For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.[a] And by him we cry, "Abba,[b] Father." 16The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.17Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory."

The revelation that we are children of the King and therefore, heirs of God and co-heirs of Christ is the key to correct behavior. Knowing that we covered in the blood of Jesus and our new uniform is the robe of righteousness ensures us that we belong. Living as the children of God, we can now perform at the highest level as we overcome evil with good.