During my first year in High School I was relegated to the Junior Varsity baseball team. The next year I was determined to make the varsity. When the uniforms were passed out I was given #25, not one of my hoped-for numbers. When I asked the coach why I got #25, he replied, \u201cBecause we only have twenty-five jerseys to hand out.\u201d In other words, I was player #25 to make the team. My wife was engaged to another guy before we became engaged. I was the second choice to be the Director of Baptist student ministries at the University of Texas. When I was hired by the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board (then called Home Mission Board), I was told they had been interviewing people for one year. Two professor candidates were interviewed for the position I occupied for twenty-two years at Southwestern Baptist Seminary. So, what\u2019s the point? You don\u2019t have to be #1 to be chosen. Our first choice at manager of our own life is our self. That\u2019s why we have to reject self and, \u201caccept\u201d Christ, making Him Lord of our lives. But here is the really good news, Jesus said, \u201cYou did not choose Me, but I chose you\u201d (John 15:16). With God, I am #1, and so are you!<\/p>\n
Join me this week in praying for the following global requests:
\n\u2022 Pray for Danilo and Catherine as they adjust to their new place of service in Columbia.
\n\u2022 Pray for Joe as the mood in his Ukrainian city is changing under Russian oppression.
\n\u2022 Pray for Christian students in Taiwan who will be returning home the weekend of April 4-6 for Tomb Sweeping Day (also known as Ancestor Worship Day) as many will face pressure to join in family ancestor worship activities.
\n\u2022 Pray for numerous Pastorless churches in Vancouver, Canada.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
During my first year in High School I was relegated to the Junior Varsity baseball team. The next year I was determined to make the varsity. When the uniforms were passed out I was given #25, not one of my hoped-for numbers. When I asked the coach why I got #25, he replied, \u201cBecause we…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}