Rickson Gracie was a fighter from the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu camp. He is considered a legend of Mixed Martial Arts fighting. Some consider him the best of all time.
In order to achieve this level of performance, whether you like MMA fighting or not, you have to respect the dedication and discipline.
He said his key to athletic success was having complete control over his mind, body, and breath.
That made me think of what Jesus said about the Greatest Commandment:
“And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.”
In order to achieve as he did, he needed all aspect of who he was devoted to his sport.
Paul tells us to copy athletes in our pursuit of spiritual growth (1 Corinthians 9:24-27). Pick the greatest athlete in a sport, see how they live, how they train, how their mind is completely focused on being better.
Take that mentality into your spiritual life. Run it to win.
We’re not competing against other Christians, or trying to be better than other people. We wrestle not against flesh and blood. Satan is out there getting ready to throw an Evil Day at you. Will you be able to stand in that day?
So much of Christianity tells you to take it easy. There’s an over-emphasis on grace, on Jesus doing it all, that we’ve become weak, apathetic, and afraid of effort or work.
It’s no surprise the church is the way it is. Biblical literacy is terrible. The morals and spending habits of Christians and the world are nearly the same. There is no real distinction in fruit between a group of Christians and the world.
I think much of this is because we’ve dropped off Paul’s encouragement to discipline ourselves. That’s for monks and crazy people, legalists who don’t know grace and liberty. Jesus did all that dying and suffering stuff, all I do is bask in the blessings!
So, we take it easy. We go with the easy believism and the easy grace and the don’t-do-anything mentality. Then we watch as more and more Christians fall away and delve into doubt and insecurity when life gets hard.
They didn’t do anything to prepare, of course they won’t stand in the evil day.
What would it look like if you did give your body as a living sacrifice as part of your reasonable service? What would it look like if you devoted your heart, soul, mind, and strength to loving the Lord?
When we mention “loving the Lord” in there it makes it sound soft. We’re just supposed to feel lovey feels really strong or something. But read 1 John. What does it mean to love God?
1 John 5:2,3 says that love for God means keeping His commandments. How well do we do that?
Are you training to get your life to look like the Sermon on the Mount? Are you loving others as Christ loved you, giving your life for them, dying daily?
Oh come on now, that’s too much. You don’t have to do all that. Better watch out for legalism, man.
I know, I know. I’ve been told that many times. I’m also watching Christians. I want to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” not “Nice job fitting in with the rest of the world down there.”
We are not to be conformed to the world. The road to destruction is broad.
It seems the majority of Christians I’ve run into all agree that we don’t have to do anything, life is easy breezy, and when we die we go to heaven because we did this one thing one time that showed we believed.
This is a lie. Let no man deceive you with vain words.
The church is filled with deceivers and they will grow worse and worse as time goes on. Expect to hear more of this sort of teaching. So much so that eventually no Christian will ever at any point do anything for fear of doing too many good works and being legalistic.
They call evil, good and the good, evil. We’re repeating biblical history. It ended the first covenant and will end the second one too.
Be like Job and Daniel. Stay faithful to what you’ve been given in Christ. Use all the resources provided you in the Gospel and fight the fight. Run to win. Don’t let the lazy, apathetic deceivers rampant in the church today slow you down.
You serve the Lord God. Serve Him well. It’s worth it.
anti-itch meditation 