Sitting outside the elementary school, waiting for Rachel and Ana, I saw a man come out with a UK t-shirt on. Across the chest, it read, “Nobody Trains to Lose.” The potential spiritual lessons from sports are probably endless. You don’t begin training, planning to lose your games. You don’t lift weights, go through conditioning, run, and all the other types of exercise, planning or hoping to lose. You do it all, hoping to win. Planning to win. Expecting to win. In fact, if you want to win the championship, you have to train like a champion.
The apostle Paul was either a super-sports fan or he was a keen observer of his culture. He used many sports illustrations. One key passage is found in 1 Corinthians 9:24ff. In the NASV, Paul writes: “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not beating the air; but I discipline my body and make it may slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.”
Paul is saying that you don’t train to lose. Paul says you discipline your body with the intention of winning the race. Discipline. Self-discipline. That’s training. The Hebrew writer – perhaps the apostle Paul – wrote: “But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil” (5:14). We must train and exercise our senses to distinguish between good and evil. Discipline is a daily process. It may even be an hourly process if we have a particular and specific weakness that is hard to overcome.
The great thing about the Christian race is that just because one wins, it doesn’t mean everyone else cannot. It’s more like a marathon in the sense that everyone who crosses the finish line gets the prize. God has plenty of 1st place trophies to go around!
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“In the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing” (2 Timothy 4:8).
Don’t train to lose.
–Paul Holland
