Christian Living on Athletes

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Grace and the Spiritual Disciplines

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What is the relationship between spiritual diciplines and grace? Does participation in the spiritual disciplines mean that we are not resting in God’s grace? Dallas Willard shares the analogy of a bas...

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An Accidental Champion

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Scripture

1 Corinthians 9:24-27

Meredith Fitzmaurice only planned to run a half-marathon on Sep 22, 2013 in Amherstburg, Ontario, hoping to qualify for the Boston Marathon. At the 13 mile point, she made a wrong turn. She missed th...

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Service over Glory

Author

Chris Stroup

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When Pearl Harbor was bombed, one of the Americans who volunteered to serve his country was Bob Feller. Bob was a 23-year-old pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, a phenomenon who had already pitched a ...

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Author

Thomas Merton

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Souls are like athletes that need opponents worthy of them, if they are to be tried and extended and pushed to the full use of their powers.

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The Two Runners

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Scripture

Matthew 6:33, Colossians 3:23, Psalm 39:6, Luke 12:15, Acts 15:29, Matthew 5:14-16, Ephesians 2:10, 1 Corinthians 10:31, Jeremiah 9:23-24, Matthew 16:24, Luke 9:62, 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, James 1:12, Romans 8:16-17, Galatians 2:20

The true story of Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams, two British sprinters who qualified for the 1924 Olympic Games, illustrates two contrasting approaches to life and identity. Abrahams was driven by ...

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He is Coming: A Triumphal Entry

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Scripture

Zechariah 9:9, Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:8-11, Luke 19:36-44, John 12:16-19

Just under 80 years ago, a crowd gathered on a humid August day to commence what was to be an unparalleled event for its time. Hundreds of thousands of spectators, police officers, and soldiers gather...

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Our Lives are about Seeing

Author

Mike Cosper

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Vision

In his excellent book, Recapturing the Wonder: Transcendent Faith in a Disenchanted World, Mike Cosper questions the desacralizing (removal of the holy) nature of secular life. Life is divested of mys...

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Is it in You?

Author

David Lomas

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John 7:38, Ezekiel 3:26-27, Philippians 2:13, Luke 6:45, 2 Corinthians 13:5

This may be a corny illustration, but I think about the Gatorade commercial where they ask, “Is it in you?” It shows athletes literally sweating Gatorade out of their pores. The point is that since Ga...

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Discipleship at Ground Zero

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Mindy Caliguire

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One of the first Bible study groups I ever attended was at the Sigma Chi fraternity house at Cornell University. We were a hodgepodge of academics, sorority girls, fraternity boys, star athletes, matu...

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The Agony & The Ecstasy

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Scripture

Philippians 3:13-14, Hebrews 12:1-2, 2 Timothy 4:7, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, Romans 8:18, James 1:12, 2 Corinthians 4:17-18

During the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Japanese gymnast Shun Fujimoto broke his right knee while competing in the floor exercise. At the time, Japan and the Soviet Union fielded the world's ...

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Changing Direction

Author

Fred Rogers

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Scripture

Philippians 2:3-4, Galatians 6:2, Matthew 20:26-28, 1 John 3:18, 1 Corinthians 12:25-26

There was a story going around about the Special Olympics. For the hundred-yard dash, there were nine contestants, all of them so-called physically or mentally disabled. All nine of them assembled at ...

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A Father’s Love brings Hope and Endurance

Author

Wayne Rice

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Scripture

Matthew 28:20

The Barcelona Olympics of 1992 provided one of track and field’s most incredible moments. Britain’s Derek Redmond had dreamed all his life of winning a gold medal in the 400-meter race, and his dream...

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Playing for His Father

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Scripture

Proverbs 22:23, Deuteronomy 6:6-9, Philippians 4:13, Hebrews 12:1-3, Psalm 19:93-94

A blind father, proud of his son who played Rugby at its namesake school, would listen intently to the roar of the crowd and the cheers for the winning team. Though he never saw his son in action, he ...

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Warming Up

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C. J. Mahaney

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I grew up playing sports, and basketball in particular has always been a favorite. Though I turned fifty-one last year, I often remind my younger friends that I “still have game.” I keep insisting tha...

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Surrounded by a Great Cloud of Witnesses

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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In his book Unshakeable Faith , Max Lucado shares a true story about a friend who competed in an Ironman Triathlon in Lake Placid, New York. You can compete in Ironman races around the world in p...

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Adapted from Hebrews 12:1-2

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Scripture

Hebrews 12:1-2

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set b...

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The Scottish Discus Thrower

Author

John Eldredge

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Scripture

James 1:2-4, Romans 5:3-5, Job 23:10, 1 Corinthians 9:25-27, Hebrews 12:11

As a young boy, around the time my heart began to suspect that the world was a fearful place and I was on my own to find my way through it, I read the story of a Scottish discus thrower from the ninet...

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No Need to Hold Anything Back

Author

Jeff Volkmer

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In the sport of cycling, one of the most important things necessary to be successful in a race is the ability to manage the timing of when “to burn a match.” This is a phrase that all bike racers know...

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Self-Discipline Transforms our Motivations

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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George Garrett, a novelist and amateur boxer wrote about a transformation that often takes place for fighters who stick with the sport. Throughout their journey to boxing excellence, in which they mus...

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Not Being Chosen Hurts

Author

Bob Goff

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Every year when I was in school, we were required to go to “athletics,” better known as gym class. I always hated it because there was a possibility we’d play kickball or dodgeball or pretty much anyt...

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How to Hold a Team Together

Author

Bear Bryant

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Scripture

Mark 9:35, Ephesians 4:2-3, Romans 12:10, Proverbs 27:17, Philippians 2:3-4

I’m just a plow hand from Arkansas, but I have learned how to hold a team together. How to lift some men up, how to calm down others, until finally they’ve got one heartbeat together, a team. There’s ...

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Shoot (or Throw)—Don't Aim

Author

Darren Pollock

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Scripture

Matthew 16:25, Luke 17:33, Mark 8:35

Whether playing baseball or basketball, one of the first sports lessons kids are taught is the counterintuitive truth that focusing too much on aiming where you want for the ball to go is likely to ba...

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The Story of Eric Liddell

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Eric Liddell, the “Flying Scotsman” was made famous by the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire . He was born to missionary parents in China in 1902 and educated in the United Kingdom. Though he made the Bri...

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Studying our Parts

Author

Brian Dembowczyk

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Scripture

Philippians 2:5, Ephesians 5:1-2, 1 Peter 2:21, Colossians 3:16, 1 John 2:6, John 13:15

Imagine you were cast to play the role of legendary baseball player Babe Ruth in a biography of his life. You could simply follow the script, reading out what is written. How much better, though, to s...

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Reducing People to the Madness of a Single Moment

Author

Jonathan K. Dodson

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 16:18, Proverbs 11:2, James 4:6, 1 Peter 5:5-6, Philippians 2:3-4, Luke 18:9-14, Matthew 23:1-12

In his thoughtful book, Our Good Crisis: Overcoming Moral Chaos with the Beatitudes , Jonathan K. Dodson points out our blind-spots with respect to pride: We rarely think of ourselves as proud. I...

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Author

Will Durant

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act but a habit.”.

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The Man in the Arena

Author

Theodore Roosevelt

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It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the ar...

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Why? Why? Why?

Author

William Rowley

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Just after leaving a training session on the ice in Detroit, Michigan, on January 6, 1994, Nancy Kerrigan was assaulted in the leg by a man wielding a telescopic baton. Television cameras captured the...

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Author

Patricia Fripp

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A team is a group of people who may not be equal in experience, talent, or education but in commitment.

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Author

Kent Hughes

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Spiritual Disciplines

It is an immutable fact that we will never get anywhere in life without discipline – especially in spiritual matters. There are some who have innate athletic or musical advantages. But none of us can ...

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