Team Talk 16/10/09

Sport & Christianity 7: Staying fit'

As players we know about the importance of staying fit physically but how important is it to stay fit spiritually, and how wo we do this?

Yesterday I was speaking to a player who this season has broken into the first team squad at a top level club. He was telling me that he has to learn lots of new things to cope with the rigours of top-flight sport, and that this week he had a session with their nutritionist who was running him through the importance of eating properly. It caused me to reflect on whether the players that we support at Christians in Sport are equally well prepared for the rigours that elite sport puts them through spiritually.

The Apostle Paul writes ‘Physical training is of some value but godliness has value for all things' (1 Timothy 4:8). A few things to notice and to apply to us as sports people:

1. Godliness needs to be prioritised. Notice that Paul doesn't say physical training has no value. There's a lovely balance about the Bible, where we too often tend to extremes, Paul affirms that physical training is important but he puts it into perspective and writes - godliness is more important. Godliness can be well understood as ‘god-likeness'. It is the outworking of our relationship with God, as in that relationship God starts to change us to be increasingly like him in our character. It's worth asking yourself the question, which do you prioritise (functionally speaking)? There are always lots of things vying for priority in our lives, but only one thing really should be a priority - godliness.

2. Godliness needs to be trained. Paul makes this point by comparison - physical training is compared to godliness - implying that godliness requires training. It is God's great agenda for our lives to transform our character into the likeness of Christ, but is this also our agenda? If God is working in us to accomplish this, the question we need to ask is are we working in line with this? It requires training, so are we putting the effort in, daily spending time with God reading his word where we see this character modeled, and daily praying for aspects of our character where we see we are lacking. As players we know the importance of training for sport, but as Christians do we know the importance of training in godliness?

3. Godliness has eternal value. The verse quoted above continues; ‘...godliness is of value in every way as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come'. Physical training yields its rewards in this life, but ultimately no matter how hard we train we'll grow old and slow down. But a godly character doesn't deteriorate it improves with time, and ultimately our godly characters are fulfilled and finished in the New Creation of heaven.

So as a player of course it makes sense to train hard, eat right, and put the hours in to make the most of the physical gifts God has given you, but it makes even more sense to train hard at godliness. So are you investing hours in this each week, are you feeding your soul on a healthy diet of the Bible and are you making the most of the gift of the Holy Spirit that God has given you. Remember godliness has value in every way!

Pete

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