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FORWARD! Align Your Values With God's Law

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FORWARD! Align Your Values With God's Law

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Cleveland was also home to the regular season MVP LeBron James, arguably the best player in the NBA. In the first two rounds of the play-offs, they swept their opponents—not losing a single game. It was generally assumed that Cleveland would be in the NBA finals. Surprisingly though, despite the heroic efforts of LeBron James, the Orlando Magic beat the Cleveland Cavaliers in six games in the Eastern Conference Finals. Cleveland's fans were extremely disappointed, but perhaps no one was as disappointed as LeBron James. In fact, after the game he refused to shake the hands of Orlando Magic players, and he refused to speak to the media. He instead went straight from the locker room to the team bus. While following LeBron James' career since he started playing for the NBA straight out of high school, I have admired how he has maturely handled the fame, the spotlight, the money and all the glitz and glamour that comes with being an NBA star. Needless to say, I was surprised by his actions. On an ESPN sports radio talk show David Stern, the commissioner of the NBA, was asked what upset him more, LeBron not shaking the Orlando Magic players' hands or LeBron's refusal to speak to the media. Stern said that both equally upset him—one speaks to rules, and the other speaks to values. Both are highly important. LeBron James let his emotions get the best of him, and it resulted with him compromising his values and violating NBA rules. Have we ever done something similar? Have we ever let our emotions get the best of us and compromise our values? Elvis Presley said, "Values are like fingerprints. Nobody's are the same, but you leave 'em all over everything you do." But just having values is not enough, is it? Even a band of thieves have values. We need to ask ourselves what our values should be based on. Values, of course, should be based on God's laws and principles that are found in His Word. God's Word defines in absolute terms what is right and wrong. Just as there are natural laws that govern the universe, there are spiritual laws that govern how we are to act and relate to each other and with God. The more we can align our values with God's laws and principles and then bring our actions and behaviors in line with that, the more joy, happiness and inner peace we will have in our lives. Jesus Christ modeled this perfectly by fulfilling and magnifying the spiritual intent and purpose of God's law by how He lived (Matthew 5:17). LeBron James was fined $25,000 for his actions. He later apologized to everyone for his behavior. Yes, values and following rules are highly important in the NBA. But they are so much more important for all of us as Christians. UN