If the game doesn’t keep score, most men don’t want to play the game. If you don’t know how to keep score, then it’s just confusing. And that’s where most men have landed in this ever-shifting and demanding culture.
I was with a couple friends making some shots on a basketball court in the back of a church. One suggested we play “HORSE,” where a man shoots and you have to match that exact shot – so you’re each trying to create impossible shots that the others will miss. You get a letter for every miss, starting with "H" until you've spelled "HORSE" and you're out.
Keeping score changed everything. Hanging out and shooting hoops was fun until we kept score. Then it became an desperate, intense battle to make crazy shots.
Keeping score. Most men don’t know a way to score life, so we come up with a score sheet – more money, bigger car, stronger muscles – anything to give life meaning, to get fired up to work hard. This makes others into opponents. Someone trying to put you out.
But, here’s a score sheet from the Word:
Micah 6:8 “No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”
Jesus simplifies this in Matthew 22:37-40: Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
This is the true scoresheet.
Love God, serve people.
Walk with humility, be kind, do right, live with integrity before God and man.
When you are that man, and bring others into that game - it changes the world for you, for them, for all of us.
This year at Lions Roar, our theme is "BORN TO SERVE." Bring your son to teach him the "rules" of life. Or bring a friend who needs to simplify his score sheet and meet Jesus in a new way. He'll thank you for it.
