Sometimes I wonder if God collects baseball cards. If He does, I bet He has folders full of the all-time greats: Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Whitey Ford, Ted Williams, Satchel Paige, Joe DiMaggio. Wow! It’d be worth millions (like He’d care).
Chances are, you have a baseball card collection, too. You probably own tons of rectangular pieces of cardboard (or foil) that feature the images of big-name ballplayers. These cards are extremely important to you — each one has special meaning (especially if it’s autographed).
And if you’re really serious about your cards, you do your best to protect them. Each night you carefully store them away in plastic binders to make sure nothing bad happens to them. You treat them like one-of-a-kind treasures. Of course, they aren’t (although a good collection can bring in some megabucks).
Each year the major trading card companies — Topps, Fleer, Donruss and Upper Deck — produce millions of baseball cards featuring the 700 best baseball players in the world.
I have to admit I’m a little jealous of the athletes on those cards.
I was never pictured on a baseball card. Though I played first base and outfield in high school and college, I wasn’t good enough to make it to the next level.
The Supreme Card Collector
So if God collects baseball cards I know one thing for sure: He doesn’t have mine. But He probably wouldn’t randomly buy a whole bunch of cards anyway; He’d get only the best.
Because He knows the future, He’d collect only the rookie cards of guys who are eventual Hall-of-Fame members. And to make the Hall of Fame, these players have to accumulate some pretty impressive statistics during the course of their careers. A hitter, for example, usually has to have 3,000 hits or 500 home runs, while a pitcher typically needs 300 wins.
Fortunately, I know that God really doesn’t collect baseball cards. I like to think of it this way: He collects people cards, and He does it in a unique way.
Rather than develop millions of cards picturing a limited number of people (like the card companies do), He produces one card for each person ever created. He puts that card in His collection as soon as — or maybe even before — the individual starts to be developed in his mother’s womb.
He doesn’t wait to see if a person is good enough or talented enough to make it to heaven. He simply collects each and every card.
Then every day He goes through His collection, just as you do with yours, looking at the face on the card, admiring His handiwork.
But He does more than that. He turns over the card and looks at our “stats.” He’s not poring over all the times that we’ve messed up by lying to our parents, cheating on a test, looking at a girl with lustful thoughts or getting jealous over a buddy’s possessions. Yes, God knows the sins are there, but those are stats He prefers not to see.
Instead, God looks at the cards noting whether we’ve accepted a position on His team. He doesn’t want any of His creations to turn their backs on Him. But He isn’t going to force anybody to accept Him as Lord either. He lets us make our own choices. And He waits patiently, knowing that He gave us the ability to make the right choice.
You see, the cards God collects and looks at are tied directly into our lives. Either the card shows all the times we’ve sinned or only a primary statistic remains that cancels out all the rest.
The Stat That Really Counts
What is that stat? Eleven words. On the back of my card, it looks like this:
“I, Jim LaBate, believe in Jesus Christ as my personal Savior.”
That’s all it takes: simple belief and trust. You don’t have to be able to hit, run, throw or catch. You don’t have to be beautiful or intelligent. You don’t have to accomplish great things during your lifetime. God took none of that into account when He purchased your card. Ephesians 2:8-9 makes it perfectly clear: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast.”
All the cards with that primary stat are the ones He holds onto forever. If God doesn’t see that stat, He sets the card aside and picks it up the next day. At the end of time, God will keep the cards He holds in His hands. The cards He has set aside will be burned.
What about you? Is God holding onto your card yet? 
TRUTH SOURCES
Get your hands on a devo guide and spend time every day praying and reading Scripture. These books from Breakaway can help!
