Devotion 11.22.16

The demise of football has been a slow erosion, with the game imploding on itself.  Ratings are down and the attacks are subtle but nevertheless exist.

It started with the idea of the game, a punishing and grueling sport, injuring people in unseen ways.  Head injuries with the athlete recovering at first and yet having the injuries return later in life in forms of dementia, depression, and other debilitating diseases.  These stories became a steady stream of reporting.  Then the game showed it had no real method for governing the unseemly.  Men who abuse their spouses or significant others.  Men who are charged with serious crimes, still allowed to play as the judicial process plays out.  To make matters worse, a guy gets suspended for allegedly doctoring footballs (really, he was suspended for interfering with the internal investigation) and receives a harsher penalty than a man who admitted to striking his girlfriend (until the video surfaced and he hasn't played since).  So, the public moves on to other things that aren't quite as violent in their eyes (like it did with boxing in the 1970s) and maybe not quite as sordid.

Football is analogous to life.  We find ourselves unable to recognize our own behaviors and sinful nature, unable to govern ourselves which eventually leads to our own death.  In John 3, Christ talks about that this way, "And this is the judgment:  the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.  For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.  But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God."  (John 3:19 - 21)

While we are in the light, we know our works and deeds.  The church spreads the message of that light, as Christ noted earlier, not to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him (3:17).  Pray that as we share the gospel message, we do it not to condemn, but to save.  Pray that we share the light we received through faith with others, so that they to may have everlasting life through the grace given through faith.

Hope Men's Ministry