{"id":589,"date":"2014-05-29T17:00:08","date_gmt":"2014-05-30T01:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/e2medianetwork\/?p=589"},"modified":"2014-05-29T17:00:08","modified_gmt":"2014-05-30T01:00:08","slug":"meeting-people-head-on-with-ray-schmautz-1-a-game-of-inches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/e2medianetwork\/2014\/05\/meeting-people-head-on-with-ray-schmautz-1-a-game-of-inches\/","title":{"rendered":"Meeting People Head On with Ray Schmautz 1: A Game of Inches"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/iframe><\/p>\nWhen I was a boy, my super-athletic brother was my hero.\u00a0 As a grade-schooler, I would bring in news clippings of him and share them during show and tell, bragging, \u201cThis is my big brother!\u201d\u00a0 So, it was only natural that I set out to be as good of an athlete as he was.<\/p>\nBy the time that I got into high school, I walked onto the school campus for the first time and one of the football coaches approached me and asked, \u201cRay, do you think that you\u2019ll ever be as good as your brother was?\u201d\u00a0 Up til then, that was a question that I had never been asked before.\u00a0 Then, during the first week of school, I raised my hand to ask a question and the teacher actually called me by my brother\u2019s name instead of my own.\u00a0 I remember sitting there, with all my friends around me, realizing for the first time that I was living in the shadow of another person.<\/p>\nSo, sports became the vehicle that I used to climb my way out of that shadow.\u00a0 By the time I was a senior in high school, I captained a championship football team, I was All-League Honorable Mention, and recruited to play football for several colleges.<\/p>\nEventually, I earned a scholarship to play at San Diego State.\u00a0 While there, I had the opportunity to learn from three of the greatest coaches to ever walk a sideline:\u00a0 Don Coryell, Joe Gibbs and John Madden.<\/p>\nAt San Diego State, I was a typical college student athlete:\u00a0 I went to all the parties, joined a fraternity, and strove for little else than having a good time a playing football.<\/p>\nOne night, I received a call from a stranger.\u00a0 He said that he had gotten my name from some people at the school and he\u2019d like to meet me for lunch.\u00a0 He was offering to buy, and I had very little money, so I took him up on his offer.<\/p>\nIt was there that I heard a statement that I had never considered before.\u00a0 He said, \u201cRay, either Jesus Christ is the Son of God or He\u2019s a fake and phony.\u201d\u00a0 He then went on to ask me if I was a Christian or even knew much about God.\u00a0 Well, since childhood, I had attended church with my family \u2013 standing up, sitting down, and praying at all the appropriate times \u2013 but in all reality, my prayer life consisted of a quick prayer before each game.\u00a0 \u201cLord, help us win.\u00a0 Let them get hurt and not us.\u00a0 Amen.\u201d\u00a0 Very self-centered, to say the least.<\/p>\nYet still, I was convinced that I belonged to God.\u00a0 After all, I attended church, I prayed, and I even read my Bible every now and then.\u00a0 But, then he directed me to John 1:12-13, which says:<\/p>\nBut as many as have received Jesus Christ, to them God gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.<\/p>\nThat was my first realization that I truly wasn\u2019t yet a Christian.<\/p>\nWell, the two of us continued to meet regularly for several months.\u00a0 He taught me about what it meant to be a Christ-follower, but he never mentioned church or a list of \u201cdo\u2019s and don\u2019ts\u201d.<\/p>\nHe simply said that Jesus was the key.\u00a0 I had to make my mind up:\u00a0 who is Jesus Christ and what part would He play in my life?<\/p>\nAnd so, one night, right before a football game, Coach Coryell said, \u201cOK, guys, take a few minutes and get yourselves focused for tonight\u2019s game!\u201d\u00a0 I then went off into a separate part of the locker room and said a simple prayer.<\/p>\nI said, \u201cJesus, for the first time in my life, I think I really know who you are; and I want to admit, I\u2019ve blown it \u2013 I\u2019ve sinned and fallen short.\u00a0 I\u2019ve done a lot of things to impress other people and I know they\u2019re not the right things to do.\u00a0 And I thank You that that\u2019s why You came \u2013 so that You could give me forgiveness for the things that were wrong in my life and I accept You as my personal Savior.\u00a0 So Lord, I do that.\u00a0 I open the door right now and I ask You to come into my life and be my personal Savior and Lord.\u201d<\/p>\nAnd with that, I got up, joined the team, and went out on the field.\u00a0 That night, we were playing for the number one ranking in the nation.\u00a0 And we lost.<\/p>\nNot only did we lose, but we lost 7-0 and their winning touchdown was blamed on me.<\/p>\nNow, you can imagine a guy who has been trying to outperform his brother all his life, trying to do everything to the utmost level on the playing field every play of every game \u2013 to have the team\u2019s national number one ranking in the balance \u2013 and we lost it all because I did something wrong.<\/p>\nHowever, walking off the field that night, there was something different about me.\u00a0\u00a0 I had become aware of the reality that my value was not tied to my performance.\u00a0 I knew that God loved me and had a plan for my life.\u00a0 And even though I was a part of losing a huge game (film would later prove that there were more blown coverages other than my own), I wasn\u2019t down on myself or beating up on myself.<\/p>\nI once shared this story with a friend who told me that what happened then happens to too few people and they end up missing Heaven by a mere twelve inches.\u00a0 You see, they can have all the head knowledge in the world about who Jesus is and what Christianity is, but if that truth doesn\u2019t make it the twelve inches from their head to their heart, and they don\u2019t make Jesus their Savior and Lord, they miss Heaven.<\/p>\nSo, that was the beginning of my Christian life.\u00a0 That night, having received Christ, walking off the field and realizing that something was different about me that I had never experienced before.<\/p>\nTo learn more about Ray\u2019s story and how God is using him today, check out <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cadence.org\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Cadence.org<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When I was a boy, my super-athletic brother was my hero.\u00a0 As a grade-schooler, I would bring in news clippings of him and share them during show and tell, bragging, \u201cThis is my big brother!\u201d\u00a0 So, it was only natural that I set out to be as good of an athlete as he was. By […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1775,"featured_media":590,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7,9,78,10,14,61,817,63,23,818,24,66,67,26,819,820,70,816,39,41,821,45,48,50],"class_list":["post-589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bible","tag-christian","tag-christian-bible-study-podcast","tag-christian-culture-podcast","tag-christianity","tag-does-god-love-me","tag-don-coryell","tag-evangelism","tag-forgiveness","tag-gospel-of-john","tag-grace","tag-is-the-bible-reliable","tag-is-the-bible-true","tag-jesus-christ","tag-joe-gibbs","tag-john-madden","tag-mercy","tag-san-diego-state-football","tag-scripture","tag-sin","tag-sinners-prayer","tag-study","tag-theology","tag-what-does-it-mean-to-be-born-again"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>Meeting People Head On with Ray Schmautz 1: A Game of 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