Match fit.
It’s a term that’s used to describe whether a player is in shape to play football. For a player returning from an injury, they talk about making sure that he’s match fit. That he’s ready to run for 90 minutes on the pitch. Yes, questions may remain about the player’s confidence, or his touch, but if a player is fit, he should be able to run with excellence on the pitch.
Most of England didn’t quite look match fit. Besides sloppy passing, and poor first touches, in the words of my usually non-football watching spouse, “England just looks slower than everyone else.”
It was like watching a team playing in the mud.
For sure there were the disappointments of disallowed goals, poor refereeing decisions, and sloppy defensive plays – but there seemed to be a sense that England was simply not ready for the world cup. And the saviour of English football, didn’t quite look match fit.
And as we bemoaned the quality of English football, I wondered about my own fitness. Not my physical fitness (though that should probably be addressed too), but rather my spiritual fitness.
Does my life exhibit a spiritual quality, a spiritua determination, a spiritual stamina. Do I maintain that spiritual focus in the circumstances that I enter? It’s so easy to complain about footballers, and their match fitness, but what is our spiritual match fitness levels like? Am I living life as if I was stuck in the mud?
In my faith, in my lifestyle, in my habits, in my thoughts, I’ve discovered that I am not training myself towards match-fitness, rather i’m content enough to stay in my seat and watch the world unfold around me.
It’s as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 9:23-25
I do everything to spread the Good News and share in its blessings.
Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win! All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize.
So how about you? How’s your match fitness?
As for me?
Let me be Match fit for a King.
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These were some thoughts on our last episode in our series on Joshua. You can find all the messages as well as the worship at the BCEC Sermon Page or listen to the sermon directly – Joshua 24.