Daily Devotional

At the time of writing this, the 2022 Winter Olympics are currently underway in Beijing, and I am always amazed by the talent, poise, strength, and endurance that the athletes display. We are watching the best of the best compete against each other down to the smallest detail and it is often lost on me just how much time and training and sacrifice that goes into just getting to the Olympics much less winning a medal.

Paul in this passage compares our Christian walk to competing in games that he would have been familiar with at the time so that we would not take our faith lightly. We are to view it as a race, striving for the goal until the very end. The goal is to live for Christ, daily. We don’t simply say a prayer and then coast through the rest of our life because we have been saved. No. We are to run toward Christ, daily dying to self, and striving towards righteousness.

This is a faith that requires sacrifice, just like the athletes training for the games. They didn’t just wake up and decide to go to the Olympics. For most their journey started many years ago as they train day after day physically and mentally for the chance to compete. Paul says those who compete are temperate or self-controlled in all things and we who compete for the cause of Christ are to be as well. Athletes have to deny personal pleasure for the sake of their goal and so do we. That discipline gives us a singleness of heart and oneness of aim, keeping our eyes fixed on Christ the Author and Perfecter of our faith.

And how much more so should our motivation be over the athletes who compete in the games? They are striving after temporal things, medals, fame, and money, all which will wither and pass away. But we who are in Christ have our eyes fixed on things that are eternal. James 1:12 says “Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.” And in 2 Timothy 4:7-8 Paul says “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.”

What great hope we have in Christ. Let us all continue to run the race with the same discipline and dedication that we see these athletes putting in, so that we would shine bright for the cause of Christ to those around us!

New King James Version (NKJV)
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.