The No. 5 Jersey

In my early Christian life, I was always being taught to put Jesus No. 1 in my life. Under that sort of environment, I could only understand the life of Jesus when He was on earth serving His people and I have no idea of how His resurrection life is like. Nevertheless, the grace message has done a perfect job in bringing revival to my understanding of who the resurrected Jesus is.

After years of sitting under grace based and Jesus conscious ministry, I have totally forgotten about the idea of putting Jesus No. 1 in my life. From the comment given by my Pastor in my previous post (Do We Have To...?), his simple comment inspired me with a new insight on the rules of a football player in a football match.

I love to watch English Premier League and I know a bit of English football through the computer game called FIFA Manager. I am not going to tell you my favorite team because that is not important here… but I chose a particular team because they were computed to be rich and it was easy for me to buy good players and built my strong team. Anyway, my insight here is how we are going to position our players!


When we put Jesus No. 1 in our life, we are actually asking Jesus to wear the No. 1 jersey, and He is our Goalkeeper. Though we have the desire to put Him No. 1, we are actually restricted His movement within our own penalty box taking cares of all the penalties and free kicks. (The truth is, He had already taken care of all our penalties of sin and the free kicks because of our nonsense). Though we could never lose the match then, we have restricted Him in the box and we have to do all the defending and attacking ourselves. Mind you, that kind of match is tough and the score is hard to come… That is actually the scenario of my early Christian life when I put Jesus No. 1 in my life!

When we put Jesus to wear the No. 5 jersey, He is no more our Goalkeeper but our Midfielder, as He is now, always in the midst of us! (The penalties of our sins and the nonsense of our free kicks had all been exhausted by His body!) He is now no more restricted by the penalty box and He defends and attacks from box to box. He is the best defensive Midfielder as well as the best attacking Midfielder we can ever find. We can be assured that no one can go through His defense and we can rest assure that He can create the best chances up front for us to score. Whenever we miss in the defense, He will be there in time to clear the danger and whenever we score at the up front, He hugs us and we celebrate the goal together, as He credits the glory to us! This is the beautiful scenario when we don't let Him wear the No. 1 jersey but the No. 5 jersey... This is the beautiful fruit of a grace based, Jesus conscious Ministry.

That is why we can never put Jesus No. 1 in our life for we have been crucified with Christ and we no longer live, but Christ lives in us. The life we live in the body, we live by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for us. For we are dead, and our life are now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, appears, then we also will appear with him in glory. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in us, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to our mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in us and Christ in us, the hope of glory.

Wow… What an inspiration! Who say Christian cannot watch English Premier League?

Under the Covenant

This video is about the own goal by John Arne Riise at the very last minutes of the injury time during 07/08 UEFA Champions League first leg semi final match between Liverpool and Chelsea. Chelsea held Liverpool to a 1-1 draw because of Riise's own goal in their away match and went on to win their qualification to the final of 07/08 UEFA Champions League. However, Chelsea was not the European Champions.

John Anre Riise's own goal

As for their match with Liverpool, I was somehow; fully convinced that Chelsea miraculously escaped that lost because of their Russian Jews Owner and their Jewish Manager. The Jews are still under the covenant that God promised Abraham and to date, their blessings still stand. Look at that match again, what else can it be other than God’s blessing. In the 07/08 session, Chelsea was spared from numerous defeats in their crucial matches.

Nevertheless, their Owner and Manager are still under the old covenant, this old covenant, which was obsoleted by Jesus on the cross two thousand years ago, is unable to prevail them over to their final victory as they were runner up in FA Community Shield, Premier League, UEFA Champions League and Football League Cup in 07/08 session. What a year of football for Chelsea.

The Captain of Chelsea miss a Penalty in Champions League Final

Believe it or not, if only their Owner and Manager are under the new covenant, which is a better covenant, they would have won themselves some silverwares for their shelves because the Bible says not by might nor by power (nor by wealth added by me) but by His Spirit.