I had a friend in college who had been a very good wrestler in high school, but at college his freshman year he stopped working out and started drinking lots of beer and gained a bunch of weight. When intramural wrestling came that winter he signed up and represented our fraternity house. He won a couple of matches then was pinned quickly in round three. After the match he was so angry that none of his friends could talk to him.

The next day I approached him and said, “So how you doing today?” He said, “Not quite as angry as last night but the fire is still burning.” So I asked him, “What are you going to do about that smoldering fire in your belly?” He told me, “I am not sure just yet.”

About a week later he approached me and said, “I know what I am going to do about that fire burning in my belly about losing that wrestling match.” I said, “Oh yeah, what are you going to do?” He said, “I am going to do 1,000 pushups and 1,000 sit-ups everyday for a year and next year I am going to pin that guy that beat me!”

Well every time I saw that kid after our conversation he was doing pushups and sit-ups. He broke those 1,000 pushups and 1,000 sit-ups into hours of the day and did between 70 and 100 every hour all day long for the next year. One year later he did pin that kid who had beat him and went on to win the first place t-shirt in intramurals.

Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 talks about runners running to win the perishable crown and how we should run to win the prize. It is not easy to be a champion in any sport at any level it takes real work! To be a Christian striving for the imperishable crown takes work also. Are you doing the equivalent of 1,000 pushups and 1,000 sit-ups in your daily walk with Christ?

Open your Bible and read one chapter a day. Discipline yourself that you must read one chapter a day before breakfast and or one chapter before bed at night. Personally, I started in Proverbs when I made my vow to read one chapter a day. If you are a brand new Christian you should go to Matthew after you read Proverbs and read the New Testament.

After you read one chapter think about what you just read. You will always have questions of why, how, where, when of the Bible. Let those questions lead you into prayer. Start with a quiet prayerful time of five minutes after you read your Bible.

My wrestling friend’s problem was he wanted to be a champion without the work it takes to be a champion. Once his opponent showed him his folly in thinking he got himself back on track to be the champion he really was.

Let me encourage you to be the Christian champion you were meant to be. The question is though are you ready to be that Christian champion striving for that imperishable crown with all the work that it takes?

1 Corinthians 9:24-27

When my two youngest girls were in grade school, I was their basketball coach in the local recreation league. One night we were working on catching a pass and quickly shooting the ball. Most of the girls were doing okay, but one girl was just struggling. She was not my daughter and her mother was at practice watching my every move.

I wasn’t sure how mom was going to take this, but I sent the rest of the team with the other coach to the other end of the gym. I did keep one other girl to be a defender. The girl who was struggling to do the drill was going to see just how quick the defense could be on you, close to the bucket.

I put the struggling girl on one side of the lane and myself and the other girl, my defender, on the other side of the lane. I told the defender, “As soon as I throw the ball across the lane, you go play defense and block her shot.”

Well that is exactly what happened. If the girl caught the ball cleanly, she would always try to dribble once before shooting. As soon as she started up with the ball to shoot it, the defender would knock it out of her hands.

After several attempts at catching and shooting, the girl was very frustrated. So I sent the defender to the other end of the gym with the rest of the team. I then asked the girl if she now understood why she must catch the ball cleanly, not dribble once, but get ready to shoot immediately. She said, “Yes.” So we started to work just on that, catching the ball to immediately shooting the ball.

Several years later during a middle school basketball game, the girl who used to struggle to do the drill in fifth grade, caught a pass about four feet from the basket and immediately shot the ball and scored. Her mother was sitting in the stands about ten feet away from me. The mom stands up and points at me and yells, “You taught my daughter that, thank you!”

Now when that girl was in fifth grade I could have given her a book on basketball and told her to read it. I could have sent her mother an email to a youtube video and told her daughter to watch it. I could have told her daughter to just practice that drill at home. But when you have direct experience at something average retention goes up to 80-90%. If you only have spoken or written communication average retention is only 5-10%. So most of you, when you come to read these devotional messages, will only remember 5-10% of it, if anything at all.

Your faith must be active. You must get involved with active learning. Jesus, at the Last Supper, washed the feet of his disciples, which was a job for a servant. When Jesus came to Peter, to wash his feet, Peter said, “Lord are you washing my feet?” Jesus said, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.”

That last sentence has great meaning. When we get ready to do an experience a lot of the time we don’t get it at first, but afterwards that experience might have been the greatest single teaching moment of your life. Let me encourage you to get some experience with your faith. Get out of your own little world and reach out and be Jesus’ hands and feet in the life you are living.

John 13:7

Have you ever seen the football coach yell at a player because the player goes the wrong way on an offensive play? Ten guys get it right, but that one player screws up because he doesn’t know the play. The coach will usually say something like this to the player, “Have you read the playbook?”

Several years ago when I first met the new head football coach of our town, he said something that kind of shocked me. He told me he did not give the playbook to his players. He had one playbook for himself and gave each coach a copy but the players would never get one. So I asked him, “Why don’t the players get one?” His answer was, “Because they won’t read it and they won’t study it like they should so why give them one?”

Jesus saw the same thing in his day with God’s playbook. Two thousand years ago when Jesus was walking the earth the Old Testament was available to read but it sounds like not many people read or studied it much. Even if they had read it they did not know the meaning of what they were reading. (Now remember that the New Testament was not around until Jesus died on the cross and the disciples started writing the New Testament.) There are several passages in the Bible where Jesus asked the people, “Have you not read……?” So let’s get into some of those scriptures where Jesus questioned the people. All of the following are quotes of Jesus.

Matthew 22:31 says, “Have you not read what was spoken to you by God……”

Mark 12:10 says, “Have you not read this scripture…….…..”

Matthew 12:3 says, “Have you not read what David did….…..”

Matthew 19:4 says, “Have you read that he who created……….”

Matthew 22:31 says, “And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read…..”

Matthew 12:26 says, “And as for the dead being raised, have you not read….…”

Matthew 22:29 says, “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor……..”

Sometime ago I wrote the story of my own conversion when I was convicted by the Holy Spirit to start reading the Bible for the first time. After the story was published, people started to approach me to tell me they really liked my story. At first I wasn’t sure how to respond to their comments, other than to say ‘Thank you.’ Saying ‘Thank you’ did not seem like the proper response. So I started to ask people, if they had ever read the Bible cover to cover?

My unscientific research of those who answered in the affirmative was less than ten percent of those who talked to me. Most folks told me they had read portions of the Bible but never read the whole thing cover to cover. Also many of them would follow that up with why they never had read the whole Bible. Does the coming up with an excuse mean that the Holy Spirit is working on them and trying to motivate them to read the whole Bible or playbook?

Go on-line and check some of this research that I have looked up but here are some of the shocking numbers on Bible reading in the United States of America from the year 2000:

Roughly 90% of Americans own a Bible with the average home having about 4 Bibles.

16% say they read the Bible daily.

21% say they read the Bible weekly.

12% say they read the Bible monthly.

41% say they rarely or never read the Bible. (We could add the other 10% of Americans that don’t own a Bible here also.)

So what kind of football team would you have if you had the same number of players reading and studying the playbook for football from the above numbers?

Now if Jesus was your football coach and you were getting ready to run a play from the playbook would Jesus be yelling at you after the play, “Have you never read the playbook?” or would Jesus be complementing you, “Well done my good and faithful servant.”

Lenny Dawson was the KC Chiefs quarterback on November 1, 1970. During a game against the Oakland Raiders, Lenny called a naked bootleg on a fourth down play as KC was trying to run out the clock with under a minute to play. The play totally surprised the Raiders and Lenny got the first down but he tripped and fell on the ground. Well in Pro Football you must be downed or you can get up and run some more.

Ben Davidson, the Oakland Raiders 6’ 8” defensive lineman speared Dawson, with his helmet, as he lay on the ground to down him. Otis Taylor, KC Chiefs wide receiver, then ran up to Davidson as he was getting up and punched him in the face, which set off a bench-clearing brawl between the two teams. After the two teams were eventually separated, off-setting penalties were called and KC had to punt. Oakland then moved down field quickly and kicked a field goal which tied the game (you could end in ties in those days) and eventually cost KC a berth in the playoffs.

The only pro football games I have ever been to have been Oakland Raider games against the Chiefs in KC. I have been to several. I dislike the Raiders greatly and it all goes back to that game in 1970. But what amazes me is the number of Raider fans that show up at the Chiefs stadium in those ghastly black uniforms and chains and spikes etc. There are always nasty comments towards the Raider fans and the Raider fans give it back to the Chiefs fans even though they are way outnumbered. I have also seen the occasional fist fight right in the stands between these football fans.

So how is your support of Jesus team? Are you embarrassed to be a Christian? Could you stand in amongst the opposition’s crowd and still be a Christian or would you go silent? As you get older you become bolder. I think that is why churches are filled with older people because they don’t care what people think of them anymore. They don’t care who knows that they go to church, believe in God and want to go to heaven.

That is one reason I admire those Raider fans. They are bold and couldn’t care less what us Chiefs fans think of them. So even though I hate to say this, we Christians young and old need to be more like those Raider fans, and be bold. It will pay off at the end of your life. Below is Jesus comment you need to keep in mind.

Matthew 10:32 “Everyone who acknowledges me publicly here on earth, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven.”

The Head Football Coach called the team into one final team huddle as practice was coming to an end. Coach said, “I know you guys are watching football on television and that is a good thing. But instead of just passively watching the game, I want you to focus on the guys on television that are playing your position. Put yourself in that game on television and try to learn something new that you can bring back to how you play the game here.”

That weekend, for the first time in my life, I watched the position I played actively on television. One of the things I saw was a wide receiver go on a curl route. Once the receiver caught the ball he turned to the outside, towards the sideline. The defender, expecting the receiver to turn to the inside, after the catch, totally missed the tackle and the receiver went up field for a large gain before being tackled.

The following Monday in a junior varsity football game my quarterback called for me to run a curl route. I went down field seven to eight yards planted my outside foot turned to the inside and took one step back towards the quarterback. As I turned my head the ball was already in flight towards me, just like in practice. After I caught the ball, I turned quickly to the outside. I felt the defender brush off my back side and could see him go by me out of the corner of my eye. The defender had expected me to turn back to the inside and had missed the tackle. I then sprinted up field another ten to fifteen yards before being tackled by the safety. Actively watching football on television had paid off in a big way!

So when you read the Bible, do you read it passively? Or do you think active reading might help you find something that would help you in your life today? As God or Jesus speaks to the different people in the Bible insert your name in place of Moses, Joshua, Peter, Paul, John and Zaccheus. Take the Bible as God speaking directly to you, for really he is! You won’t be listening if you think God is speaking to someone else.

Luke 19:5 “When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, (insert your name) ______________ come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.”

My phone rang at work and when I picked it up, on the other end was an old college friend. After a few moments of catching up, he said to me, “We are bringing our football team through your town Friday afternoon and we would like to eat there. Is there any place to feed 50 players and coaches at a sit down meal at 3:00 p.m.?” I asked him what they wanted to eat and he said, “A small hamburger patty and a baked potato.”

That Friday afternoon I went to the restaurant to meet my friend. We then sat down with the other coaches and talked about our high school football teams. Specifically, I wanted to know if they did their pregame meal like this every Friday night when traveling. My friend said, “Yes they did.” He also said, “We have to travel a long way from home on game days so we need to feed our players a pregame meal, and a post game meal.”

‘An army marches on its stomach’ is a saying that is attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte. To be able to fight well, an army must eat well. A football team is very much like an army and they must also eat well. The Christian man or woman in God’s army also needs to eat well.

In John 6:48 Jesus says, “I am the bread of life.” In the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray, the Our Father, we say, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Jesus loves to use words and phrases that can have two meanings and that is the situation with, “Give us this day our daily bread.” I used to think this meant we were to pray for our daily food and to be thankful for it. But Jesus also means for us to come to him everyday to get the bread of life in our fellowship with him while we read the Bible and pray.

New research polls show that 77% of Americans think the nation’s morality is headed downhill. But only 20 out of 100 Americans read their Bible on a regular basis. And out of those 20 who read their Bible regularly only five read their Bibles more than four times a week.

More than half of Americans think the Bible has too little influence on our society. That means that over 50% of Americans want the Bible to have more influence on our society. But only 5% read the Bible more than 4 times a week? The majority of us know the answer to our problems yet we refuse to read the answer to our problems? So instead we are hungry, for the Bread of Life.

Those pictures you see of starving people in Africa where they are so skinny you see all the bones of their bodies? God most likely sees Americans spiritually, as a starving people. We are seated at a banquet but refusing to eat from the Bread of Life!

The senior slowly took both of his football shoes off in front of his locker, stood up and approached one of the sophomores in the locker room. As the senior handed his football shoes to the sophomore he said, “Clean these shoes up and shine them before tomorrows game and bring them to me at suit up time.” The sophomore looked around to see if any of his classmates were getting shoes to clean and shine and they all were receiving shoes from the seniors.

My first thought, as a sophomore receiving a pair of football shoes from a senior, was this guy would beat me up both in and out of practice if I screw this up and didn’t clean and shine his shoes or forgot to bring them to the game the next day. As I left practice that night those shoes were the most valuable thing in my life for the next 24 hours.

Our practice field, back in those days, had plenty of dirt and very little grass. The night before our Thursday practice it had rained, so the field was muddy. So the football shoes I received were totally covered with mud. So when I got home I took the laces out of the shoes and washed the laces in the sink and then hung them up to dry. Then I went outside with a screwdriver and putty knife and slowly started to scrape away the mud on the shoes. When most of the mud was off the shoes I started in with a wet rag to get all the mud off.

Next I took a blow dryer to the shoes to dry them up some and then began to shine the shoes with black shoe polish. After I was done with the senior’s shoes, I then started cleaning my own football shoes. Coach had told all of us to clean and shine our shoes so we would look our best before the game.

Our lives at times reflect those dirty football shoes. We live in sinful ways and have mud and dirt all over us not just on our shoes. Galatians 5:19-21 says, “The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

1 John 1:7 says, “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”

Our souls are the most valuable thing about us and are much more important than a pair of dirty football shoes that need a good cleaning.