Relay For Life.

Thanks to the great people that I work with at Newton Federal, we have started a team to help raise money for Relay For Life this year.  I have started a personal fundraising page with a starter goal to raise $500.00.  I know my friends and family will help me top that amount easy.  The donations go to help fight cancer, which is a disease that touches EVERYONE in one way or the other.  It has especially touched my wife Becky's family, losing her mom Jodi 13 years ago to colon cancer.  I know that Jodi's life and fight with cancer glorified God and touched so many lives.  It brings an awareness to God's sovereignty and even a "losing" battle with cancer magnifies His power to us.  Also, I believe in God’s power to heal, by miracle and by medicine. I believe it is good to pray for both kinds of healing. Cancer is not wasted when it is healed by God.  He gets the glory when this happens too and that is why cancer exists.
I believe Relay For Life is one way that God uses the hearts and minds of people to help heal cancer.  I am honored to be a part of this fundraising this year and hope my friends and family join with me on this.  Here is the link to my Personal Donation Page.  Thank y'all in advance!
http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR?px=27107198&pg=personal&fr_id=39870

Your Love Amazes Me

It’s our nature to try to please people and look for pleasure.  We were made for it, created to take pleasure in God, for His glory.  John Piper calls it “Christian Hedonism.”  The Bible tells us that the chief end of man is to love and glorify God forever.  Isaiah 60:21 says “Your people shall all be righteous; they shall possess the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I might be glorified.”  Romans 11:36 tells us, “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”  Noticing a theme?  God’s glory is found when He carries out His promises to man.  The whole sum of the Bible shows this Promise.  At the Liberate Conference at the end of February this year, Michael Horton taught on the Promise.  He said that Christians are not under a contract where we have to live up to our part of the bargain.  It is not a situation where we need to do something, some kind of work, to earn our blessings from God.  Horton says we are part of God’s Last Will and Testament.  We already have the blessings from the Promise.  Christians are God’s chosen heirs to that promise.  Heirs don’t earn their reward.  They only have to be part of the family.  As Christians, we are adopted as God’s children, now In Christ.  What are those blessings?  Christ’s Righteousness!  What?!  If this grace and love doesn’t make you say, “This can’t be true”, then you aren’t understanding how BIG and radical it is.  That amazing grace is where God gets ALL the glory so that no man can boast.  This doesn’t just happen at our salvation, at Jesus’ life-death-resurrection.  It also isn’t just at our death and glory in Heaven with Jesus.  We have all the peace and blessings here right now.  Like Pastor Tullian says, the “now-power” of the gospel is so freeing.  God’s grace is the power of our sanctification, becoming like Jesus, today.  We aren’t saved by grace and then somehow now it is up to us to “get better” or earn our blessings as Christians.  I don’t know about you, but I KNOW I would be in big trouble if that were the case.  That in itself is where Christians keep that yoke of slavery to Sin that Jesus came to free us from.  In Galatians 3, Paul tells them they are fools!  Verses two and three say, “Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”  It is for freedom from this burden that Christ came.  He came to set the captives free.  Grace liberates us from so much.  Most of all it liberates us from ourselves!  Grace frees us from burdensome work for God into a joyful obedience.  We can now be risk-takers knowing that God is sovereign and working ALL out for our good and His glory.  It frees us from trying to gain acceptance from others, we already have it in Christ.  All of this gets me to my point and what the Bible says about our “work”.  Our work should be to “believe better.”  The only way to do that is with constant reminders of the gospel of grace.  (*The Apostle Paul helped to do this in each of his letters in the New Testament, so get in the Word!)  That while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  That right now, you are seen as perfect and as righteous as Jesus.  You are “justified by the Justifier.”  I always see a quote from Martin Luther that reminds me of this.  It is usually in Latin but what it says is, Christians are “simultaneously sinners and justified.”  It is an amazing thing to think about.  We know we still sin, but we are no longer seen that way.  We are slowly but surely being transformed by grace to become like Jesus.  Our only hope is in this free, one-way love from God through Christ alone.  Can I get an “Amen!”?

Go in Peace,
Mitch

The Gospel Continually Saves

How the Gospel saved me, 21 years AFTER I became a Christian

After reading an article about a pastor’s rediscovery of the Gospel through a tough and pivotal time, it led me to write a small testimony about my life in transition and how a better grasp of the gospel did the same for me. 

In the summer of 2010 I was becoming aware that my baseball career could be coming to an end.  For everyone that knows me, you know competing in baseball has been a focal point of my existence since I was five years old.  Even more, it had been a year-round event since I was 13 years old.  At the time, being 31 years old, you can see the time and effort I had put into my passion in the sport.  I had been through a similar situation after my senior year at Georgia Tech.  Not getting much playing time in my final season there, I started seeing the signs that opportunities in the future might not be there.  Major League Baseball teams usually don’t take a chance on a guy that isn’t on the field much in college.  After that final game, I did get to pitch a scoreless inning by the way; an overwhelming sadness came over me.  I just knew it was the last time I would compete in the sport, no way did I think getting drafted or signed to play pro ball was an option.  I remember leaving the field, a game we played at UGA and lost, and finding my family while trying to fight back the tears.  As hard as I tried I couldn’t keep those emotions inside of me.  Baseball was what I wanted to do.  It was my love, my passion, and I felt like I could still do it well enough to continue after college.  I just didn’t see an opportunity ever presenting itself. 

After a couple weeks of finishing school and cleaning out my locker at GT, the MLB draft came and went without any interest in Mitchell.  As expected, I started to think about my future without baseball being a part of it.  It ate at me; I resented not getting opportunities in the final season to prove myself for the next level.  This fueled me to get back outside and find a way to be seen.  While searching online for results of the 2001 MLB Draft I saw an advertisement for MLB sanctioned open tryout camps.  My interest immediately peaked and I found a schedule of some of these in my area.  The first one, and the only one that would matter, was at Lassiter High School in Marietta. 

The Baltimore Orioles were having an open tryout looking for players to fill any vacant spots they may have at the lower levels of the Minor Leagues.  I spent the next few weeks working out and long-tossing to prepare myself for a couple of these tryouts, my last shot to further my baseball career.

This was God’s plan.  He put that fire in me to continue with my passion.  I showed up at the tryout camp, threw the best I ever had, and got signed the following Monday.  Never did I, or anyone else, think it would last as long as it did.  I spent the next ten seasons, the last six being at the top of the farm system in AAA, battling in the Orioles system.  I had some great seasons, some good seasons, and a couple of OK seasons.  Throughout those years I was able to share my faith with many teammates.  I tried to be a great example of what a Christian should be.  God used me in impacting others’ lives and used some of my teammates to impact my walk with Him. 

That brings us back to the summer of 2010, while in Norfolk.  Not too different from my senior year at Tech, I wasn’t getting the opportunities.  You might say the writing was on the wall, that again, my baseball career was coming to an end.  This time, God knowing it really was the end, He showed the gospel and His grace to me in a new and fresh way.  A new friend, and brother in Christ, was brought into my life in Spring Training of that year.  He was on fire for the Lord.  You never saw him without his Bible.  His words were soaked with truths by staying in the Word consistently.  He had an influence on me by showing me my laziness in that area.  That was the first step to push me into a more dedicated growth in a deeper knowledge of God.  From there I ventured to online sermons and podcasts, mostly John Piper preaching and interviews to supplement my Bible reading.  I got a new sense of God’s ultimate sovereignty.  His “Passion for His Glory” became more apparent.  Through realizing these truths deeper, God gave me more trust in him, a stronger faith in His ultimate plan for His glory.

At some point after the 2010 season got started, one of my best friends mailed me a book written by an author/preacher I didn’t know much about.  The book is called Surprised by Grace.  The author, Tullian Tchividjian, gives a new perspective on the story of Jonah.  Far deeper than any version I heard in the past.  This book, along with many sermons from this pastor and other gospel-centered preachers, opened my eyes more to a radical grace God freely gives us.  This turns the focus from inside me and my selfishness to outside and fixes our gaze on the One who deserves praise. 

So that summer, in the midst of a career in baseball ending unfulfilled of a life long goal, the daily need for the gospel was shown to me.  It’s needed much more and deeper than just when you become a Christian.  This is what it rescued me from that summer:

Fear- If baseball is over, what is next? I could have the fear of the unknown.

Insecurity- Was I not good enough to keep playing?  Will family and friends back home think I failed?

Anger- I was cheated, used, unappreciated.  I could have become bitter.

Entitlement- I deserved a shot in the big leagues.  I was “good” and didn’t get the reward.

Insignificance- There would be no more, Andy the professional baseball player.

Apart from God’s grace, a bitter, angry man could have come home in the fall of that year or early in 2011 when it was certain I would be finished with baseball.  The truths of the gospel found me before Satan used these issues and questions to break me.  It eased the transition having a sure, rock solid faith in a God who is sovereign and pours undeserved common grace on sinners daily.  My focus was taken off of myself and fixed on the finished work of Jesus that gives Christians all the acceptance and forgiveness we need to have the worth we all seek. 

When the last game was over and it was time to drive back home for the offseason, waiting with open, unconditional-loving arms were Becky, Nolan, and Sophie and the rest of my family.  These blessings are much greater than a “cup of coffee” or even a career in Major League Baseball.  God showed me that He will glorify himself through me in other ways.  He showed me that my identity is secure in God’s approval through Christ. 

It was God using a great family, new friends, long time friends, pastors and their books, but most of all a fresh perspective of His Word that renewed my mind.  It’s the realization that Jesus is our righteousness, worth and approval, not worldly things.  This single-handily eased the biggest transitional period in my life.  It is truly Amazing Grace that saves us, but also, this grace daily keeps us going and growing.