Having been recently reminded of how the Lord can use sports and of it’s many parallels to the Christian life, I started to think….here goes.
I want to preemptively strike against the notion that I am writing from an anti-sports position. I have been involved in some type of sporting activity my whole life. I understand what is required both to build a successful team and to succeed individually as a team member. I was taught that ‘total commitment’ was the only way to success. Only those willing to commit themselves to a purpose and all the required disciplines were considered team members. Each potential player had to personally consider whether the cost was worth paying. Most were not willing to accept this kind of discipline. Really what I and the other team members were doing was setting ourselves apart unto the success of the program. When practice time came around my life schedule conformed to it’s requirements. Things that I really would have liked to do had to be set aside. If it was really too hot or uncomfortable to practice, still I showed up on time. If I got injured, I willingly pressed through the pain for the team. Never would I have seriously considered missing practice and surely not a game, for any reason. Well, unless I was too ill or injured to play. I was totally committed. What are you committed to? What do you order your life schedule around? What will you willingly lose sleep for and endure discomfort for? What are you spending your life on?
Can you be involved in sports and all the other things that are available to folks these days and be a Christian? Sure you can. The rub comes when sports and all the other available good things become first priority, set above Christ, His church and His purposes. What is most important? It’s your choice. What consumes your time, money and energy? What would the church be like and how would Christ’s work prosper if we were ‘all’ as committed to it?
Commitment is the missing component in Christian life. You cannot hold a job, have a successful marriage, get an education, play a musical instrument well or excel in a sport without commitment. Neither can the church be built.
Jesus said; “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves his son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” Matt.10:37
Christ is to have first place among all things, no exceptions. What does your life say about what’s really important to you? Are you offering Jesus the best of all you are and have or are you giving Him the leftovers after the best has been spent on other things? When Jesus went out to call disciples unto Himself, He said to two fishermen, ‘follow me and I will make you fishers of men’ and the scriptures record that they immediately left their boats, their fathers and their nets and followed Him. (Matt 4:19-22) How could they do that? They did it by what the old Puritans called ‘the expulsive power of a new affection.’ What they saw in Christ was greater than all else. Revelation determines our level of commitment.
‘He’ remains to be seen.
