Playing your Cards Correctly

Apples to Apples is an easy card game. In this game you select a card from your hand that you think is best described by a card played by the player in the judging position. If that player, the judge, picks your card, you win that round. The goal is to have your card picked as the judge compares what card best describes his. The players need to know a little about what the Judge thinks so they make the right decision about what card to play.

We have a desire to be recognized, to have our lives identified as being specially selected. We long for our lives to be noticed. We live in ways that cry out for attention. We play our cards so that we might be selected by men, or women, our bosses, our neighbors, all to be seen as special. We play the card of career and education so we are selected by the intellectuals. There are many cards we can play to get the attention of the wrong judges.

The wrong judges are never satisfied. They continue to want more and you lose. Their rules change frequently. You find that no matter what card you play you are left unsatisfied, depressed and still longing to be identified as special – wanting someone to say, “I pick you!” If Apples to Apples represented the world, you will find the judge may play a card completely contradictory to what you thought you knew. This really shows there are judges with evil motives that fill our lives.

If Apples to Apples is a light analogy of God, the Judge of the earth, the lover of people and the Savior of the World, his Word makes clear how you and I will may be selected by and IN HIM. He is consistent and desires to be known accurately by all of us in this life "card-game." God, as Judge, does let you know you are selected. You get to decide to put down your cards so He can receive you.

1. The Judge selected you to be born into this world.

From birth - Psalm 139:13-14 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

2. The Judge selected to have His Son die for you and me and to satisfy His wrath.

For redemption - John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever [each Mom that] believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

1 John 2:2 "And he is the propitiation for our sins.."

3. The Judge selected you to be His child

If you are saved - John 1: 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

He desires for us to know Him. Each of us has been selected to know His love and experience His joy. Now it’s your turn to put your card down. Will you look to His Son, that is the Only card that will allow you to be selected. Choose wisely, to lay down your cards or keep playing cards contrary to what He has revealed about Himself.