Daily Devotional: Thursday, August 22 – Don’t Just Compete

“Allow us to not turn into weary in doing good, for on the correct time we’ll reap a harvest if we don’t quit.” — Galatians 6:9

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As a teen rising up, I knew two issues: the Lord Jesus Christ was my private Savior, and sports activities. I obtained Christ as my Savior in sixth grade after I used to be introduced the Campus Campaign Invoice Shiny tract, “The 4 Religious Legal guidelines.” I began taking part in sports activities in junior excessive and continued by highschool and school, and nonetheless play at present as a senior grownup. Baseball, basketball, soccer and hockey … I simply couldn’t get sufficient of them. My greatest concern again then was which one I’d play professionally. However by the tip of highschool, it turned clear {that a} skilled profession was not what the Lord had in thoughts for me.

As an alternative, I traveled down a non-team sport path: pure, drug-tested bodybuilding and powerlifting. I realized early on that I wasn’t the most important or quickest, and work ethic, self-discipline and drive didn’t at all times translate to success in staff sports activities. With my newfound particular person sports activities, nonetheless, I might channel my God-given energies individually.

Nobody outworked me in eighth-grade soccer, and nobody does at present. Now in my forty sixth yr of competing in pure, drug-tested bodybuilding and powerlifting on the age of 62 years younger, I’ve 66 state, 24 nationwide and one masters world report in powerlifting, whereas concurrently profitable bodybuilding contests in varied competitions (all after working by some 13 completely different surgical procedures). I actually relate to Isaiah 40:31: “However those that hope within the Lord will renew their energy. They are going to soar on wings like eagles; they’ll run and never develop weary, they’ll stroll and never be faint.”

I imagine that sports activities, like most issues in life, are a God-given privilege to take part in. We can’t take this with no consideration and will be grateful for this reward from the Lord. Moreover, Jesus teaches that it’s about perspective or how our coronary heart is bent, not about an total private efficiency that the world focuses on. The Lord is extra involved about our witness and the way we conduct ourselves because the secular world is at all times watching. “Allow us to not turn into weary in doing good, for on the correct time we’ll reap a harvest if we don’t quit” (Galatians 6:9).

Competing is a means of representing the Lord in sports activities, and it’s not solely a privilege however a chance from the Lord to plant religious seeds within the hearts and minds of our rivals. Our actions and reactions in the course of the warmth of competitors outline us as God’s athletes, not solely to our rivals but additionally to the potential spectator viewers which can not but know the Lord.

As Jesus’ phrases and parables generally shocked or challenged the hearts and minds of individuals, I feel our phrases to fellow rivals ought to do the identical. Despite the fact that the world appears to assume that rivals must be handled as enemies, Jesus teaches us to like our enemies. So why not shock or problem them with encouragement and a real, heartfelt want for them to carry out optimally within the warmth of battle, even when it means at our personal efficiency expense? On this means we plant religious seeds of their hearts and minds.

In bodybuilding, every competitor will get to decide on the music to which they carry out their routine. I’ve used this platform as a chance to plant seeds. Amongst the huge number of secular music, I select to make use of up to date Christian music with a robust message to hopefully set off folks’s hearts and minds. “For the phrase of God is alive and lively. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the ideas and attitudes of the center” (Hebrews 4:12).

Are you benefiting from the chance God is supplying you with to plant seeds for Christ within the hearts and minds of these round you, wherever that could be?

— Jeff Mumaw

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