The football season is getting close to starting. We have been fasting from football. When we think of fasting we normally think of not eating or drinking and we also associate fasting with lent in the spring time of the year. But I am telling you we have been fasting from football for months now and I am ready to start enjoying the savor of eating, drinking and focusing on football again.

I have thought for years we love the game of football so much because we don’t get to play football or watch football year round. Other sports you can play all year long. But football we can only get ready for the game of football year round by lifting weights, playing 7 on 7, football camps etc. We also only have a certain season of life you get to play the game of football. It is here and then it is gone. Enjoy it while you can because soon you don’t get to play it anymore.

Fasting is something we should do in our spiritual lives. Actually, in the world today many have chosen to fast from anything religious and have been gone from church services and Bible reading for years. Covid-19 just emptied out churches and many have struggled to get people back involved.

What we need to fast from is our phones, television, internet, media, radio and other devices that take up our time. I am not saying stay away forever just have a certain day or time of day you choose not to do those things.

John Wesley the founder of the Methodist Church fasted every week from sundown Thursday to sundown Friday. You don’t have to fast from food you could give up a latte once a week and focus on prayer instead. Anything you find comfort in you could fast from such as the phone in the morning. Pick up the Bible first thing on Mondays and not your phone for five minutes.

Mathew 6:16-18 “When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen and your Father who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

Once football practice was over and you went to the locker room and started taking off the football gear you started realizing how hot and dirty you were. When you got under the shower and the water started hitting you sometimes you would just stand there and relax and let that water flow over you. Then you would grab one of the bars of soap that had been given to the school, as the price of admission, at the annual soap scrimmage and start lathering up your body and washing away all that filth and grime and sweat and such that was on you.

Have you ever thought that cleaning is just what God wants us to do with him? Everyday we must clean our bodies, but we also need to clean up spiritually each day.

The shower and cleaning each day should not be taken for granted. Running hot water inside a house, during all seasons of weather, with it draining away is a miracle that hasn’t been in the lives of humans forever.

The spiritual cleaning we need has been available for 2,000 years, ever since Jesus died on the cross for our sins, but we seem to ignore it and think we don’t need it. Many people have this thought; I went forward at a religious service or was confirmed years ago so I am good. Sorry to tell you, but no one is perfect and we all need to be cleaned up every day from the filth, dirt, sweat and grime we live in each day in this world.

May we thank God for the miracle of the cleaning we have available in our lives from Him.

1 John 1:8-9 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

We are involved in a war, a war against Satan, demons, principalities and evil. If you are a baptized Christian you are in God’s army. What kind of soldier are you? Are you committed? Are you involved? Are you ready for the battle that is going on? Have you taken on the full armament that is available from God? Would you send your football team on to the football field without helmets and pads against a team wearing their helmets and pads? Then why go into battle against Satan unprepared?

One of the tactics during a battle is to take out the leaders of the opposing force. Satan tries to destroy our leadership. We have seen that in the Catholic Church with the priests. It has undermined our faith and trusts in the priesthood. The same thing goes on in protestant churches. Pastors get involved in inappropriate relationships with their parishioners. If we lose faith in our church leaders then maybe we stop going to church. If we stop going to church we stop praying, stop reading the bible and stop fighting the battle against evil.

We have had a rash of inappropriate contact between educators and students or underage children in Kansas. This is a tactic of Satan to continue attacking the leadership in our communities. Remember we are at war, a spiritual war. Satan wants you and your children dead!

What should we do to help our leaders? We should pray for them for starters. Our priests and pastors our football coaches and teachers. Have you ever read the U.S. Soldiers Creed? The American soldier learns that he will never leave a fallen comrade behind. We are in God’s army and these fallen priests, pastors and educators are our fallen comrades. Don’t desert them! Pray for them. Contact them. Encourage them to come back to the faith and repent. Yes, they must pay their debts here to our society if found guilty, but it does not mean we leave them behind on the battlefield of sin.

Several years ago I had a good friend who was being adulterous in a relationship while married. He ended up divorced. I went to him during this difficult time and told him I didn’t know what he was doing, but wanted to tell him I was still his friend and encouraged him to do the right thing. I saw him recently and we had a conversation about that period of his life. He told me only 3 or 4 people came to him and expressed the same feelings and thoughts to him like I had done. He told me his pastor was one of those who kept encouraging him to do the right thing and to keep coming to church. But my friend said most everyone else in the church treated him like they did not want him there anymore so he quit going.

All of us have fallen short of the glory of God and have sinned. Jesus and all of the prophets and saints had one message. The message was and still is repent!

Satan wins when our friends are killed on the battlefield of sin. But if they are just wounded in action there is still hope. Extend your helping hands to your friends wounded in the battle against evil today. Give them hope and encourage them to do the right thing and repent.

Ephesians Chapter 6 versus 10-20.

We don’t always see it nor pay attention to it, but at the end of a game of football the referee will hold the football above his head. This is the signal that the game is completed.

Jesus was lifted up and crucified on a cross. This was the completion of his life on earth as a living human being. Jesus death was his sacrifice for all of us human beings to be saved and to have eternal life. All we must do is to look upon him and call out his name to be saved from our lives of sin of which we are all guilty.

The Bible talks about this lifting up of Jesus. It goes back also to Moses and his time.

Numbers 21: 4-9 They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”

Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.

The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.

Notice that the snakes were not taken away. The people had to continue to live with the problem they had brought on with their sins. Yes, as long as we live on earth we will continue to have problems. But we must continually look to Jesus for help to live.

John 3: 14-15 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man (Jesus) be lifted up, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

Back in the days of high school shop class we made things with iron. My memory of working with iron was welding, using the cutting torch, heating up iron and pounding it with a sledgehammer on the anvil. Sparks and pieces of metal flew around you. We burnt holes in our shirts and jeans.

One day one of the guys set his long-sleeved shirt on fire. He was just standing there flagging his arm thinking it would go out. Several guys grabbed a blanket of some sort and covered up his arm and put out the fire. Next day the kid was back in class with his armed wrapped up in bandages where he had burnt his arm. Shop class was exciting and fun, and you never knew what was going to happen next.

There was always some kind of conflict going on in shop class. Guys would get unhappy with each other and yell at each other. Sophomores got picked on and made fun of. There were no women in the class so there was lots of manly talk going on.

Proverbs 27:17 Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

It takes work to grow up to be a man. You were not born a leader or unselfish, you must be taught. Men need other men to show them how. There are going to be sparks with each other as you grow up and learning how to handle conflict is a good thing.

Jesus started his church with 12 men and there was conflict among them. There was greed, selfishness, want of power among them, just your typical 12 men off the street kind of guys.

We need not, to be many, to start to change the world. We just need to get started one man at a time.

The devil’s not threatened by the silent! pic.twitter.com/gxuYa6CuqG

— Coach Hines 🇺🇸 (@CoachKurtHines) June 22, 2021