July 28th, 2021
“Spiritual Olympics”
As I watch the Olympics, I am always amazed at how gifted, dedicated and skilled those athletes are. They do things I could never even imagine doing. They put it so much time and effort into preparing and training. I have no doubt that they have struggled, like all of us, to find the proper balance of work and home and the proper balance of self-improvement and relationships with other people. As we watch the Olympics, we see the women and men who have become the best of the best. They’ve trained, they’ve practiced and they have continually moved towards perfection. At the Olympics, they have reached the highest level they could ever possibly reach. What we don’t see is the amount of time, early mornings and late nights, weights lifted, family time sacrificed and failures that it took to get there. All we see is the culmination of years, perhaps even decades, of incredible dedication and training.
I wonder what it would look like if we gave that much time and effort to our faith. Can we imagine what we could do for God, for the Church, for our neighbors and for the whole world if we put as much time into our spiritual performance as those athletes put into their physical performance? Imagine if we had their endurance, their perseverance, their dedication and their relentless pursuit of improvement. It’s not impossible. It can be done. If they can win Olympic gold, we can become what God has created us to be. Like those Olympic athletes, it’s just a matter of hard work, dedication, support from great people and a refusal to quit.
For the next 5 weeks, we are going to be talking about the theme of what I am calling Spiritual Olympics. We’re going to be talking about it on Sunday morning, and then several times throughout the week in multiple different ways. Together we will look at what it takes to compete in spiritual Olympics, in particular we will be taking a look at scriptures that emphasize self-control, preparation, humbleness, perseverance and keeping our eyes on God. This is going to be quite a journey and I can’t wait for you to share it with me.
We will see that there is one major difference between the Olympics on TV and Spiritual Olympics. In the Olympics on TV only one person or one team can win. But in Spiritual Olympics, the more people who succeed, the more we all win. That’s the goal of Spiritual Olympics; for as many people to succeed as possible, to bring as many people as possible to Christ and to do whatever it takes to help the others be successful.
Let’s be Olympic Christians; dedicated, humble, prepared, self-controlling, perseverant and focused on God. Like those Olympic athletes there may be times when we don’t do our best, something gets in our way, distractions come and we lose our confidence. But, also like those athletes, if we refuse to quit, refuse to give in to temptation and refuse to lose our hope, we will be successful Olympic Christians. We might not win any gold medals, but we don’t need Earthly treasures. The only reward we need is mouths fed, bodies clothed, families housed, new disciples entering into a relationship with God and current disciples given the tools and opportunities they need to keep growing in faith. I’ll take that over a gold medal any day!
Blessings,
Reverend Dave
As I watch the Olympics, I am always amazed at how gifted, dedicated and skilled those athletes are. They do things I could never even imagine doing. They put it so much time and effort into preparing and training. I have no doubt that they have struggled, like all of us, to find the proper balance of work and home and the proper balance of self-improvement and relationships with other people. As we watch the Olympics, we see the women and men who have become the best of the best. They’ve trained, they’ve practiced and they have continually moved towards perfection. At the Olympics, they have reached the highest level they could ever possibly reach. What we don’t see is the amount of time, early mornings and late nights, weights lifted, family time sacrificed and failures that it took to get there. All we see is the culmination of years, perhaps even decades, of incredible dedication and training.
I wonder what it would look like if we gave that much time and effort to our faith. Can we imagine what we could do for God, for the Church, for our neighbors and for the whole world if we put as much time into our spiritual performance as those athletes put into their physical performance? Imagine if we had their endurance, their perseverance, their dedication and their relentless pursuit of improvement. It’s not impossible. It can be done. If they can win Olympic gold, we can become what God has created us to be. Like those Olympic athletes, it’s just a matter of hard work, dedication, support from great people and a refusal to quit.
For the next 5 weeks, we are going to be talking about the theme of what I am calling Spiritual Olympics. We’re going to be talking about it on Sunday morning, and then several times throughout the week in multiple different ways. Together we will look at what it takes to compete in spiritual Olympics, in particular we will be taking a look at scriptures that emphasize self-control, preparation, humbleness, perseverance and keeping our eyes on God. This is going to be quite a journey and I can’t wait for you to share it with me.
We will see that there is one major difference between the Olympics on TV and Spiritual Olympics. In the Olympics on TV only one person or one team can win. But in Spiritual Olympics, the more people who succeed, the more we all win. That’s the goal of Spiritual Olympics; for as many people to succeed as possible, to bring as many people as possible to Christ and to do whatever it takes to help the others be successful.
Let’s be Olympic Christians; dedicated, humble, prepared, self-controlling, perseverant and focused on God. Like those Olympic athletes there may be times when we don’t do our best, something gets in our way, distractions come and we lose our confidence. But, also like those athletes, if we refuse to quit, refuse to give in to temptation and refuse to lose our hope, we will be successful Olympic Christians. We might not win any gold medals, but we don’t need Earthly treasures. The only reward we need is mouths fed, bodies clothed, families housed, new disciples entering into a relationship with God and current disciples given the tools and opportunities they need to keep growing in faith. I’ll take that over a gold medal any day!
Blessings,
Reverend Dave
Tagged with spiritual disciplines
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