Let's Go to Work

Sports are something that I have always been around. I have been involved with some sort of sports team since I was 5 years old and, as a pursue a career in coaching, I hope to be around sports for a very long time. I believe that athletics have taught me many lessons that help me through my daily life. From little league to my current position as the manager of the UNA baseball team I have continued to learn more and more about the game itself and how to deal with certain issues. For example: pain, loss, victory, perseverance, struggle, etc. All of these things I have encountered at one time or another through athletics. I have also used sports as a parallel with my Christian life. All the things found in the list above are often also found in the character traits of a Christian. I have told you this so that you will know how many of my posts will be set-up. I believe there are life lessons to be learned through athletics and I think that those same life lessons can be implemented into our daily Christian walk. So now that you know this, here is my first post:

Virginia Tech's football team has a tradition. It is the tradition of the lunch pail. This old metal lunch pail with VT painted on the side is given to the hardest working defensive player each week for him to hold on too. The lunch pail symbolizes the Hokies blue-collar approach to the game and it is seen as a "badge of honor" by the players. Everyone wants that lunch pail. If you have possession of the lunch pail but you get out worked, then you lose the right to carry it and it goes over to the other player. The pail represents the fact that the players are going to have to "carry their lunch with them" because they are going to work. In our Christian walk we also have a badge of honor that we can carry...The Cross. If you look in the book of Matthew 16:24 it says, "Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." Also Mark 10:21 says, "Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing though lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me." And finally, Luke 9:23 says, "And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." We see from these three passages that we are commanded to take up our cross and follow Christ. Now, different from the lunch pail, more than one person at a time can carry this cross but, a person can't carry it if he is not willing to work. A true Christian must be willing to "go to work" day in and day out for the Lord and fight for his truth. So I close my first post with this challenge to you...Take up your cross and follow the Lord, not just in faith, but also in works like we read about in James 2. LET'S GO TO WORK FOR THE LORD AND HIS TRUTH.

-Ben Stevenson