What with gay rodeos going on in Arkansas; the NCAA, NFL, ESPN, and pretty much every other Sports Corporation wholly embracing (and enforcing) a pro-homosexual agenda), and things like American Pharoah’s “eternal glory” attaining win over the weekend, it’s pretty clear that Corporate-produced sports theater plays a major role in captivating, defining and controlling the hearts and minds of most Americans. (See: The NCAA, the NFL, and why your grandkids will be pro-gay.)
That said, this is not another post about the “inherent evil” of sport in modern American culture, mainly because I don’t believe in the inherent evil of things like sports. (See: The devil only holds what we leave in his hands.)
This is another post about the potential evil of sport as a purposefully destructive distraction aimed and pushed hard at males and men of all ages by the many State and Corporate run systems that “educate”, define and dominate modern American culture. (See: Fiat Bread and Football Circuses in Romans 1 America.)
While I’m not personally a “sports guy” in the comprehensive sense, I do have a few sports, teams and athletes that I appreciate and track, chief among them being football. As an Oakland (and L.A.) Raider fan since the age of eight and an Arkansas (and never L.A.) Razorback fan since nine, and as a man who has by the grace of God been growing in knowledge and pursuit of Christ as King in practice for some time now, I’m often pausing to evaluate and better understand (and therefore better enjoy) the role of sports in my life.
I’m not going to get into great detail about any particular sport here. I just want to focus on one important core point. The simple thing I’d like to encourage men and boys in particular to kick around is this: Do you know more about your favorite sport or team than you do about the Word of God?
Put another way: Do you know your sport better than you know your God?
Are you better versed and more informed as to the detailed history of your team or your sport than you are as to the purposeful working of your God in history overall and your life in particular?
Are you more attuned to the plans and more invested in the aspirations of your favorite team than you are personally attuned to and invested in the propagation of the Kingdom of God right here and now through the Gospel-fueled Great Commission of Jesus Christ?
The point is priority, as in: What is yours?
And lest those with an axe to grind against sports think that their favorite [insert activity/icon here] is off the hook, au contraire. This principle applies to everything.
So long as we keep things like sports and games and books and travel and even friends and family in their place, they can be truly wonderful, life-enhancing, God-glorifying things.
But when they’re allowed to skip the rails and assume the pole position in our worldviews and lives, these idols – like any other – will lead us off the track and into ruin.
So please ask yourself the above questions.
Answer ’em honestly.
And understand that if you do know more about your team or your sport than you do about the Nature of God as revealed in His Word, then that very likely means that you care more about your team or your sport more than you do about the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ.
That is a terrible and dangerous place to be.
And it is precisely where this culture wants you to be and where it wants you to stay.
So if after some honest self-examination you find yourself to be in that place, there is only one path up and out of that trap: Repentance – with repentance being much more than merely acknowledging a problem in the ever-popular “well, nobody’s perfect” or “I’m only human” sense. True repentance is born of brokenness in light of the revelation that we have sinned against God and sought to assume for ourselves lordship over our lives that only belongs to Christ. True repentance is a grace-fueled blessing from God, and it always produces meaningful change in practice.
So reorganize your priorities. Put sports and everything else in its proper place. Make Christ King and the center of your affection in practice.
That’ll make everything else better.
Including sports.
~
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nice