Last night the Mountaineer basketball team lost a game that they should have won.  What’s worse is they lost it really because of a lack of effort or concern.  It’s long been established that the coaches at West Virginia continue to tell the players that they play for the entire state – a state that holds the reputation of being a blue collar, hard working, coal mining state.

After the game last night, their coach Bob Huggins reportedly said that the effort the team displayed was very disrespectful to West Virginians.

“I’m sure there are a lot of days they don’t want to go down in that mine, but they do.”

Hmm. That’s pretty interesting.  He was essentially saying “They go work, they do incredible hard dirty work so that you can play basketball.  How are you going to respond to that?”

I guess we could even think about it that this way: Those miners are going to work today, to harvest coal, that will be turned in electricity, that you will consume – what are you going to do with that power?  Will it be worthy of their trip?

Even more so, we can think about some one else who did the work for us, so that we didn’t have to do a thing. The book of Romans address this in several verses spread over a few chapters.

^5:6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

^5:8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

^5:11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

^6:1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? ² By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

^6:8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him

^6:12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.

In light of that work, what effort are you giving today to  live?