The Real Prize

I have to admit that I really love everything about sports. There are a lot of reasons why people like sports but there has to be something more to it than the pure pleasure we derive from watching athletes compete. There has to be something in our nature that wants to compete and see victory. Team sports really get us going because the sum of the whole is greater than any individual part. Football is the ultimate team sport. Nobody can be a star without a supporting cast. Each player needs the other for ultimate team success. There is hard work and training involved. There is real blood and sweat shed during a full season of football. There is a price to pay. Sports fans like to watch their sports teams strive for something. It's the closest they can come to being a part of such a thrilling endeavor.

When I first gave my life to the Lord I had the same kind of feelings I had as a super sports fan only with much higher stakes. The game was about your place in eternity and who was going to win the rights to the rest of your life after you die. My original community of believers was a team on a mission. We were heaven bent on conquering and taking enemy territory. We loved the lost even when they would get mad at us. The Lord gave us so much love for people that we were for the most part oblivious to their anger because we knew that they weren't really mad at us. They just didn't know Jesus yet and they knew that something very real happened to us. We weren't phony. We were too stupid to be phony. There wasn't a theologian among us but God was blessing our efforts. We would rejoice when another would come to know Jesus and join our little hit squad. We were impassioned. We were a team.

The Lord is doing this all over the world today. There are teams of believers gaining victories in the kingdom of God but many of us are oblivious to their efforts because their mission is not located in our typical religious settings. The nature of the church of the great commission is a church that is on the go and not on the stay. It's not a church that constantly prods people to come into its brick and mortar domain but a church that goes out into this lost and hurting world and spends time with people. That was how Jesus did it! He competed with the Devil for the lost souls of humanity and won. This wasn't a religious effort. It was His passion to win! He competed for us and won.

I Corintians 9:23-25

I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.

Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.