A successful partnership is a key in any sport, no matter how many athletes are playing at once. Let's think about basketball specifically. You start with a pick-up game of two-on-two. In that situation, you must work hand-in-hand with your teammate (partner), in order to prevent your two opponents from scoring, and you must find a way to score yourself. Usually, in order to become efficient partners, you have to play a few games together to figure it out. And the more you play together, the better your partnership becomes.

The same would be true if you added more players to the game. However, the more players on your team, the more practice it takes in order to become good. It takes more time to have five players figure out what's required of them than two, because there's a more combined effort to play together as a unit.

Did you know that the same can be said of the Body of Christ, a.k.a. God's team? I don't have to tell you that we're dealing with more than five players on a basketball court. There are millions of followers of Jesus worldwide. The same things that make you a good teammate or partner on a sports team are really the same things that make you a good teammate in God's Kingdom. On a sports team, the goal is to score more than your opponent. God's Kingdom is so much more important than that. The effort to be a good teammate has eternal consequences. It is to represent the God of the universe and His unbelievable plan for redemption, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Yes, there are many people in God's Kingdom, which can make it tough at times to be a good teammate. But we’re called to do our part, to think on the things of God in order to encourage unity and strengthen the partnerships on our eternal team!