Daily Devotional

One of my favorite sports movies is “Remember the Titans,” starring Denzel Washington and Will Patton. The 2000 film is based on the true events of T.C. Williams High School’s 1971 (*spoiler alert) championship football team. In the town of Alexandria, Virginia, the school board was forced to integrate an all-black school with an all-white school. While doing so, the foundation of football tradition was put to the test as black and white players had to learn to play together. When the team is on their summer retreat prior to the start of their season, Coach Boone takes the men on a jog, and they end their run at the place where the Battle of Gettysburg was fought. Where 50,000 young men fought, bled, and died the same fight they were still fighting in their day. And in his speech, he challenged his players, saying, “If we don’t come together, we too will be destroyed. Just like they were.”

Every time I watch that scene in the movie, I just kind of get chills. There’s just something about a truly motivational speech that just makes you clench your fist, get back up, and shout to move forward even if you feel like giving up. The truth is life is hard, and there are times when we want to just throw in the towel, but we are encouraged and dare I say challenged to live with endurance and perseverance. As a big sports guy, I love athletic analogies that give us clear application on how we can continue to live in the midst of challenges with endurance. There are two major disciplines that we see from the passage above that help us endure as we move forward.

The first is that we must set aside the sin that can easily trip us up. If we live with sin, we rarely endure. Imagine trying to run without tying your shoes or, maybe worse, trying to run with them tied together; you're asking for trouble. The second and most important thing is to look to Jesus. He is the champion of our faith! He's the one who endured the best. He endured the cross and the hostility of it all. And with our endurance, we should be thankful that Jesus made a way for us—the secret to walking like Jesus is living like Jesus. And one of those secrets to His endurance is the intentional time He spent retreating to pray to His Heavenly Father as often as He could. His endurance came from His discipline to commune with the Father.  In our effort to look and live more like Jesus, may we continue to look to Him for endurance today and throughout the week. And may we be intentional about having our own individual mountaintop experiences where we are spending time with the Father. This is how we endure.

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.