30 Daily Football Devotionals

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Encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. ( Hebrews 3:13, NIV) For You To Think About We often see or hear stories of how someone invited a friend to church and his or her life was changed. The stories are celebrated and all of us would like to impact someone’s life in a similar way. It takes small steps of obedience to be prepared. It can be as simple as memorizing one verse and being prepared to share it in the moment. Many small acts of obedience lead to the highlight moments. Making disciples takes risk. Relationships are risky. But do you know what? Jesus has given you the authority. And Jesus himself will be with you. The kingdom is coming. As N T Wright notes, “Every time we say the words ‘Our father…’ we are pleading for that day to be soon, and pledging ourselves to work to bring it closer.” Paul also explains that believers are called to a personal and passionate commitment to their shared gospel mission. The believer’s life represents their unique and strategic ministry opportunity to serve and grow by making much of Jesus in every circumstance. No one else can do your job of glorifying Jesus with your life. Sanctification depends on humble faith that embraces the actual life that God has given us. After all, “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble” (1 Pet. 5:5). For if anything is clear in Scripture, it is that in sanctification is a community project and there is never any room for pride.

PROVO, Utah – BYU athletics has been waiting for this moment for decades. That moment is moving into the Big 12 Conference.

For You To Pray

We need this warrior instinct more than ever because it’s increasingly rare in our society. We don’t have to look far to see that the ambition for an undivided, straightforward, sacrificial focus has been compromised by a distracted, weaselly, self-obsessed directionless. The studies are out and the articles have been written. As a young assistant football coach this scene made a powerful impression on me, not just as a coach, but as a man following Christ. Like Paul, I cannot think about my Christian walk without noting the obvious parallels to lessons learned from athletic competition. Here, I hope to point to some lessons from sports that I have been able to leverage for spiritual growth. My hope is that these examples will help you to think more intentionally and profitably as a Christian about your interaction with sports and doing so will be a catalyst toward sanctification.

King Saul echoed the thoughts of every general manager, coach, and fantasy football enthusiast when he said, “Find someone who plays well and bring him to me” (1 Samuel 16:17). He was actually looking for a musician, but he found young David, who turned out to be a pretty good athlete as well. If lying is a pervasive issue of humanity’s sinful nature, and people are saying more things publically now than ever, then we probably shouldn’t believe everything we hear. And most don’t. Partial-truth, spinned-truth, no-truth — it’s expected, and almost tolerated. Almost. Faking a bomb threat to dodge a final exam will still get you into trouble. And at least some of the baseball players who lied about steroids have faced consequences.We meet Jesus’ disciples—eleven of them, anyway—waiting on the top of a mountain in Galilee. They are gathered there to see what this man who was dead and is now alive has to say. What the plan is now. No doubt their heads are spinning. It’s been a crazy week. Pray for opportunities to build relationships, to deepen relationships, to make disciples and then seek these opportunities out. When I was in early high school, our small Bible study wanted to grow. So we prayed that we would get more members. We prayed every week. But I never, ever asked anyone to join that year. Neither did any of the other members. I remember one day having this dream that a bus full of high schoolers would just show up. I don’t know how, because I sure wasn’t going to ask anyone. Then for fans, on Friday, June 30, BYU will have a “BIG Countdown” at the Student Athlete Building at 11:30 p.m. to ring in BYU’s new life as a member of the Big 12. This Saturday, from 3-6 p.m., BYU is holding “the BIG Party” to celebrate BYU officially being in the Big 12 Conference. The church and football complement each other really well,” he told the briefing, saying that he regularly discussed the sport with parishioners of all ages. He still plays and even captains the Archbishop of Canterbury’s football team, which in the coming weeks will compete against teams from The Times, the Vatican and the Swiss Guards.

do ask for God’s help. With pre-game prayers and the “Tebowing” some players do, we might assume that both sides are angling for divine favor. With God on your side, how can you lose? As a Psalm says, “With God we will gain the victory, and he will trample down our enemies” (Psalms 108:13). But you might be correct in wondering whether God really stands on one side or the other. Does he really care whether the Saints or the Lions come out ahead? (Maybe that’s a bad example.) BYU officially joins the conference on July 1, 2023, and all of the festivities leading up to Saturday’s big day are deemed “Big Week.” It started Sunday night with players and coaches from BYU’s athletic department speaking inside the Marriott Center for a devotional. This eye on eternity becomes important, then, no matter what we’re doing—playing football or watching it, or driving the kids to practice. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” (Colossians 3:23-24). This is the real game. This is the real goal. Be Prepared! It’s not about winning, it’s about being prepared. Being prepared is being ready when God opens doors. Having a passion to prepare will help you face the battle as an athlete so that challenges are embraced…never feared. The lesser and nonessential agony and conflict of sports has lessons for us about ultimate and eternally significant agony and conflict of spiritual war. The church lives as the outpost of the kingdom of Christ in the time of the overlap of the ages, the already/but not yet of the kingdom. Therefore, the Christian lives in the context of a cosmic spiritual battle and is called to fight against sin. According to Paul, if athletes agonize to fulfill determined temporal goals, how much more should he and others agonize to “be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 2:1, 3-4)? Both the athlete and the soldier need single-minded focus and the incentive of victory. Each must endure hardship, consistently and agonizingly striving in preparation and disciplined training.

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Paul himself sees a connection as he continues his exhortation to Timothy. After the example of the soldier, Paul moves on to the example of an athlete with the same kind of commendation (2 Timothy 2:5). If the soldier fights with focus, the athlete only wins if he plays by the rules. Both of these examples, along with the painstaking work of a farmer, represent the character that Paul says Timothy should emulate. He said the book stemmed from his own efforts to set up a church team in Merseyside.“A lot of the boys were being ridiculed for playing for a church club and many left because they couldn’t cope with those comments,” he added.“So, I wrote Thank God for Football to tell the boys in the club, ‘look, you’re not freaks, you’re part of a rich tradition’. My Christian faith is based on making a difference, of serving that model we have of Jesus during his 33 years on this earth.” Undivided, straightforward, sacrificial focus for good. That is what I mean by warrior instinct. It’s a summary of the character Paul refers to beginning in 2 Timothy 2:3 — the character of a “good soldier of Christ Jesus.” Elaborating on the soldier metaphor, Paul tells Timothy, “No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.” Get this: Paul, the experienced missionary, encourages Timothy, the young pastor, with the example of a warrior. What exactly is that example? It’s focus. Warriors don’t get distracted. They don’t get caught up with the wrong things. They are clear about their aim. Life and death are on the line.