30 Daily Football Devotionals

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Pray for opportunities to build relationships, to deepen relationships, to make disciples and then seek these opportunities out. When I was in early high school, our small Bible study wanted to grow. So we prayed that we would get more members. We prayed every week. But I never, ever asked anyone to join that year. Neither did any of the other members. I remember one day having this dream that a bus full of high schoolers would just show up. I don’t know how, because I sure wasn’t going to ask anyone. Along with Sitake, wide receiver Chase Roberts and defensive end Tyler Batty represented the BYU football program. From BYU basketball, guard Trey Stewart conducted the devotional. Plus volleyball setter Whitney Bower and in soccer, Olivia Katoa, nee Wade. This eye on eternity becomes important, then, no matter what we’re doing—playing football or watching it, or driving the kids to practice. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” (Colossians 3:23-24). This is the real game. This is the real goal. Be Disciplined! If integrity is doing the right thing when no one is watching, then competitive greatness is working hard when no one is watching. Competitive greatness is a disciplined life. God loves good, hard, clean competition. Disciplined athletes have great awareness of the abilities God has blessed them with, and they use those gifts to their full potential to please Jesus. They understand there is a merging of self-discipline and God-provision. Jesus sees their doubt. He knows that when we doubt we have a choice between obedience and disobedience. When we doubt, obedience is not not doubting. Sometimes we will have doubts—it is part of the Christian life. Yet when we doubt, do we continue to obey? Do we put ourselves in places where God can continue to speak to us—in our small group, at church, in prayer, in Scripture? Even though the disciples are struggling with doubt, they have already obeyed Jesus by coming to the mountain in Galilee to meet with him. They need help with their unbelief.

Comparing that with religious belief, she added: “When you have religious belief, you’re a participant in something, you have those beliefs. Christianity calls upon you to act on those beliefs and, as a football fan, I’m called upon to not just watch but to really get behind the team.” This passage in 2 Timothy, serving as a sort of snapshot of these combined metaphors, can be summed up as undivided, straightforward, sacrificial focus for good — what I’m calling warrior instinct. Why We Need It When the church began and a man named Paul traveled around to help churches get started, he worked with a variety of people to share the message of Jesus. Paul describes one person, Titus, not just as another person on the team, but as someone he could trust: “As for Titus, he is my partner and co-worker among you; as for our brothers, they are representatives of the churches and an honor to Christ” ( 2 Corinthians 8:23). Looking for opportunities to apply these fundamentals in your life can not only make a difference for you, but it will make a difference in the lives of others.

American football is the most popular sport in the United States, with over 1 million high school athletes and over 67,000 college students participating in the sport at any one time, with a small percentage going professional. Whatever your thoughts about football, there’s no denying that with the sport’s qualities of teamwork, work ethic, and leadership, among others, football can teach its participants important life lessons that resonate both on and off the field. Now an initiative organised by the Football Association hopes to show that a dedication to the sport can work hand in hand with faith groups to enhance the game’s reputation — on and off the pitch. He said the book stemmed from his own efforts to set up a church team in Merseyside.“A lot of the boys were being ridiculed for playing for a church club and many left because they couldn’t cope with those comments,” he added.“So, I wrote Thank God for Football to tell the boys in the club, ‘look, you’re not freaks, you’re part of a rich tradition’. While the influence of faith on football has sometimes been seen as divisive, many of the country’s clubs emerged from church groups, according to Peter Lupson, author of Thank God for Football. Published in 2006, his book charts the religious roots of many big clubs, among them Aston Villa and Barnsley. As a young assistant football coach this scene made a powerful impression on me, not just as a coach, but as a man following Christ. Like Paul, I cannot think about my Christian walk without noting the obvious parallels to lessons learned from athletic competition. Here, I hope to point to some lessons from sports that I have been able to leverage for spiritual growth. My hope is that these examples will help you to think more intentionally and profitably as a Christian about your interaction with sports and doing so will be a catalyst toward sanctification.

What is the heart of the Christian faith? Our central mission? Today we meet Jesus at the very end of Matthew’s Gospel. A lot has happened in 28 chapters. Jesus was born. He lived an incredible life. Then he died. Three days later, he rose from the grave. He was healed and whole and every inch the Savior his disciples hoped he was—and then he told them to go to Galilee and wait for him there. The church and football complement each other really well,” he told the briefing, saying that he regularly discussed the sport with parishioners of all ages. He still plays and even captains the Archbishop of Canterbury’s football team, which in the coming weeks will compete against teams from The Times, the Vatican and the Swiss Guards. Sitake opened his talk with a “Go Cougs” message to those attending the Marriott Center and later said, “It’s going to be one of those talks.” Undivided, straightforward, sacrificial focus for good. That is what I mean by warrior instinct. It’s a summary of the character Paul refers to beginning in 2 Timothy 2:3 — the character of a “good soldier of Christ Jesus.” Elaborating on the soldier metaphor, Paul tells Timothy, “No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.” Get this: Paul, the experienced missionary, encourages Timothy, the young pastor, with the example of a warrior. What exactly is that example? It’s focus. Warriors don’t get distracted. They don’t get caught up with the wrong things. They are clear about their aim. Life and death are on the line. BYU officially joins the conference on July 1, 2023, and all of the festivities leading up to Saturday’s big day are deemed “Big Week.” It started Sunday night with players and coaches from BYU’s athletic department speaking inside the Marriott Center for a devotional.Following Jesus often feels the same way. Some next steps — like salvationor marriage — are like the big play that makes it to the highlight reel on SportsCenter. But other next steps feel more like first downs—not sexy but still moving us closer to the goal of becoming more like Jesus. Two Practical Lessons a Christian Can Learn From Football 1. Small choices now can lead to highlight moments later.

Okay, you might be thinking, but what’s war have to do with football? Well, actually, war and football (sports in general) have some deep connections. So that’s what we’re doing in football, and that’s why we’re having sessions like today … because I think faith alongside football, makes a great community.” The FA says the project aims to make the game truly inclusive. Arran Williams, diversity and inclusion manager at the FA, told the webinar that other upcoming events include an Iftar and call to prayer at Wembley stadiumand events for Vaisakhi in the West Midlands. Making disciples takes risk. Relationships are risky. But do you know what? Jesus has given you the authority. And Jesus himself will be with you. The kingdom is coming. As N T Wright notes, “Every time we say the words ‘Our father…’ we are pleading for that day to be soon, and pledging ourselves to work to bring it closer.”For the next seven months Sportsfaith will be releasing a new devotional every month. Our hope is that over the next seven months we will be able to assist you in beginning a new prayer life, creating a Christian-based relationship with your athletes, or give you something to think about and meditate on every month. Deep Routes contains twenty-one football-related lessons that apply the fundamental principles of American football to the Christian life. It is a daily devotional from a Biblical perspective with a football theme. The author, a professional educator and head football coach, wrote the book about spiritual principles drawn from football situations. It's designed for the sports fan, the young student-athlete, the coach, or as a men's Bible study tool. My Christian faith is based on making a difference, of serving that model we have of Jesus during his 33 years on this earth.” Be Prepared! It’s not about winning, it’s about being prepared. Being prepared is being ready when God opens doors. Having a passion to prepare will help you face the battle as an athlete so that challenges are embraced…never feared. I found that something like a quarter of all clubs that have played in English football over the past five years have a close connection with the church.”

We need this warrior instinct more than ever because it’s increasingly rare in our society. We don’t have to look far to see that the ambition for an undivided, straightforward, sacrificial focus has been compromised by a distracted, weaselly, self-obsessed directionless. The studies are out and the articles have been written.Sanctification is the process by which believers are set apart to Christ and grow in likeness to Christ. Sanctification is a primary and daily battleground in spiritual war. The biblical story begins with serpent-inspired conflict in the garden and ends with a glorious celebration of triumphant victory over the serpent in a new heavens and new earth. Growing in likeness to Christ is not simply a matter of a few big spiritual moments. As some sports teams like to say, it is a matter of being all in, all the time. Legendary Alabama football coach Paul “Bear” Bryant was reported to tell his teams, “It is not the will to win the matters—everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that matters.” I have heard another coach say that growth comes from making yourself do what you need to do when you do not want to do it, and to do so consistently enough that you want to do it. Walking in line with the gospel does not come to us naturally or intuitively. Rather, we are involved in the daily process of becoming who we are in Christ. Jesus is Lord! Our natural desires are not Lord. In Ephesians, Paul exhorts the believer, “put off the old self” and “put on the new self” (Eph. 4:22, 24). This process of learning to live in accordance to our new identity in Christ is a daily and progressive struggle. I heard a sports psychologist say, “We don’t rise to the occasion, we sink to the level of our daily habits.” That is good counsel for athletes and Christians who want to grow. Strong affiliations in football have sometimes been linked to religious rivalries, but Ms Pepinster hopes such sectarianism is disappearing. Sportsfaith would like to provide you with devotionals that can help as you begin a new year, new season, or new chapter in your life! If lying is a pervasive issue of humanity’s sinful nature, and people are saying more things publically now than ever, then we probably shouldn’t believe everything we hear. And most don’t. Partial-truth, spinned-truth, no-truth — it’s expected, and almost tolerated. Almost. Faking a bomb threat to dodge a final exam will still get you into trouble. And at least some of the baseball players who lied about steroids have faced consequences.