A Purpose Greater Than Yourself

A Purpose Greater Than Yourself

 

The short excerpt is from David Thomas in his book Remember Why You Play.  The author follows the Faith Christian Lions football team during the 2008 football season.  Kris Hogan is the head football coach, and below is part of what he told his team after losing in the state championship game.  The Scripture is Matthew 22:37-39 Jesus replied:  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.

 

Life is about relationships.  You guys don't play football just to win on the scoreboard.  The first, greatest commandment:  Love your teammates.  That is why you play football.  You don't play for the scoreboard.  I know you want to win.  I know you're hurt right now.  Let me tell you why I like football.  Because if the score were reversed now, you would have still had to demonstrate all of the biblical qualities that make a great husband, and make a great Christian, make a great dad.  It's perseverance.  It's commitment to other individuals.  Commitment to a team.  You're going to have to do that one of these days when you don't like what's going on in your church.  You don't just bail when things get tough.  You go to your pastor and you tell him you love him and you fix it from the inside.

 

You live life with a purpose greater than yourself.  That's what sports are about.  You're not always going to get what you even deserve in life.  On a work scale, you probably deserved to be the state champions.  Life is about how you deal with what you get.

 

Champions, have a great summer!-David Vining

 

P.S.  A movie called One Heart is supposed to come out later this year involving the Faith Lions and the Gainesville State School, a prison school.

The Impact of Fathers

The Impact of Fathers

 

Dear Champions,

 

The short excerpt is an early Father's Day message by James Dobson, and the Scripture is at the bottom of the excerpt.

 

Prisons are populated primarily by men who were abandoned or rejected by their fathers.  Motivational speaker and writer Zig Ziglar quotes his friend Bill Glass, a dedicated evangelist who counseled almost every weekend for 25 years with men who were incarcerated, as saying that among the thousands of prisoners he had met, not one of them genuinely loved his dad.  95% of those on death row hated their fathers.  In 1998, there were 1,202,107 people in federal or state prisons.  Of that number 94% were males.  Of the 3,452 prisoners awaiting execution, only 48 were women.  That amounts to 98.6% males.  Clearly, as Babara Jackson said, "it is far easier to build strong children than to repair broken men."

 

Some years ago, executives of a greeting-card company decided to do something special for Mother's Day.  They set up a table in a federal prison, inviting any inmate who so desired to send a free card to his mom.  The lines were so long, they had to make another trip to the factory to get more cards.  Due to the success of the event, they decided to do the same thing on Father's Day, but this time no one came.  Not one prisoner felt the need to send a card to his dad.  Many had no idea who their fathers even were.  What a sobering illustration of a dad's importance to his children.

 

I once had a conversation with a man named Bill Houghton, who was president of a large construction firm.  Through the years, he had hired and managed thousands of employees.  I asked him,"When you are thinking of hiring an employee-especially a man-what do you look for?"  His answer surprised me.  He said, "I look primarily at the relationship between a man and his father.  If he felt loved by his dad and respected his authority, he's likely to be a good employee."  Then he added, "I won't hire a young man who has been in rebellion against his dad.  He will have difficulty with me, too."  I have also observed that the relationship between a boy and his father sets the tone for so much of what is to come.  He is that important at home.

 

Psalm 27:10 Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Begin With The End In Mind

Begin With The End In Mind

 

Dear Champions,

 

The short excerpt is from David Thomas in his book Remember Why You Play.  The author follows the Faith Christian Lions football team during the 2008 football season.  Head coach Kris Hogan is the Christian head football coach.  The Scripture is James 4:14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

 

I want you to imagine that it is 60 years from now, and it is your funeral.  When your wife, kids and grandkids look back on your life, what would you want them to say about you.  You probably would not want them to say, He was never here, but he sure was rich.

 

What do you do every day?  What sarcasm do you use with your buddies that maybe you should not use?  What unlovable do you pass in the hallway that nobody is going to talk to all day, and all it would take is for a Lions football player to say, How is it going?  When they put you in the ground, you do not want people saying, he thought a little bit more about what people thought of him than doing the right thing.  He was a little too cool.

 

Nobody in this circle can pay back their mom and dad.  You might as well forget that.  But you can make them proud.  And you can make your mom and your dad, when they lay their head on their pillow at night, you can make their heart totally at ease and think how blessed they are to have a son who looks them in the eye and says, Yes sir and No sir, Yes maam and No maam.  Takes out the trash before being asked, Guys, you can make your mom and dad's life if you will be the young man that they have dreamed about you being.

 

You have to think about where you are going.  Habit number two from the Covey principles:  begin with the end in mind.  What would you want people to say about you when you are gone?

Ecclesiastes 12:13  Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter:  Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind.  

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Meeting With God

Meeting With God

 

Dear Champions,

 

The short excerpt is from David Thomas in his book Remember Why You Play.  The author follows the Faith Christian Lions football team during the 2008 football season.  Head coach Kris Hogan is the Christian head football coach.  The Scripture is Mark 1:35 Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.

 

Coach Hogan opened Open Floor Thursday by saying it would be an extremely short session.  If you are going to be what God intended you to be, if you are going to have any impact at all spiritually speaking, you must meet with God as a lifestyle.  You must take the time to put that on your calendar and schedule everything else around it.  If you do not, you will not have spiritual impact on this planet.  It is like taking a car and not putting gas in it.  It does not matter how many horses the engine has, it is not going to go without fuel.

 

Meeting with God is to your spiritual life what food is to your mortal body.  It will shut down and cease to function.  It is not that you will lose your sonship or relationship, but you will lose your fellowship with God, and you will be spiritual midgets.  You will not impact your kids.  You may think you will, but you will not.  The reason why is because the words you spoke did not have the anointing of God, so they are going to fall on deaf ears.  An uneducated person, such as Peter the fisherman, can get up and speak with the guidance of the Holy Spirit and 3000 can run to join the church.  But an educated man like Nicodemus, without the anointing, can speak and everyone will say, That is nice and go on about their business.

 

Your resources and mine are not enough to function in the Spirit and make an impact.  Oh, they might be enough to do some certain job, if that is what you want your life to be.  But you will have no impact spiritually if you do not make it a priority to meet with God over and over as a lifestyle.

 

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining

Courage

Courage

 

Dear Champions,

 

The short excerpt is from David Thomas in his book Remember Why You Play.  The author follows the Faith Christian Lions football team during the 2008 football season.  Head coach Kris Hogan is the Christian head football coach.  The Scripture is at the end of the excerpt.

 

What other people think about you really does not matter that much so long as you are doing what you know to be right.  Hogan asked the players to contemplate the courage it takes to be a Christian.  No great person has ever been with the crowd.  They always walk against the flow.

 

A crowd is where a coward goes to hide, because he cannot stand up.  You say, what does that have to do with Christianity?  Think about some of the things you may consider hard.  You might consider it hard to share your faith.  Especially with your cool buddies around.  You might think that is hard.  That is not nearly as easy as grabbing a beer and fitting in and drinking. 

 

It takes a lot more courage to be a Christian teenager than it does to be anything else on this planet.  Because you guys are moral wimps most of the time-and I am talking about your age, not you.  But teenagers are moral sissies.  They just cannot-because of their need for approval, they just cannot look another person in the eye and say, I am not going to drink.

 

It is a man of God who can override any crowd.  I value what God thinks about something more than your opinion of it.

 

Check your coward meter.  Where do you rank?  What are you willing to do?  Are you willing to be different?  Because if you will not be different, you will make no difference.  It takes a lot of courage to be the man of God that you dream about being.

Joshua 1:9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.

Champions, have a great week!-David Vining