Winning the Gold

We stayed up late last night and watched about half of the 2008 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremonies. What an impressive show! I read this morning that Beijing spent 43 billion dollars to put this all together and I’m sure the opening was a large part of that incredible budget.

Today the cameras are on the sport events. As we watch the athletes in their efforts to do their best, and perhaps win a medal, I’m amazed at the incredible timing of today’s devotional reading. While the world focuses on and applauds athletes and physical prowess, God says this: “ . . . exercise yourself toward godliness. For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.”

The Bible often uses figures of speech related to the body, even to athletics. In the days it was written, they didn’t have HD television or the Internet to broadcast them, but sports events were nonetheless very popular. In 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, Paul uses the metaphor of athleticism to say more about developing godliness. He points out how what he does with his body affects his determination to follow the Lord.

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.

Exercise is important to me. I’m no athlete, but if I don’t get my body moving at least five times a week, I gain weight, feel sluggish and do not have the energy to do things more important. My body needs this discipline, yet my spiritual life profits from it as well. When I can discipline my body, it seems much easier to allow God to discipline the rest of me.

On those days when I don’t feel like walking, biking, lifting weights or anything else, I remind myself that my goal is godliness. At the same time, I know there is no value in being fit with abs of steel if I cannot be kind to my neighbors or love my family. A gold medal is useless if God is not pleased with the way I treat others. Why exercise my body if I am not willing to exercise my will in obedience to Him? The reading for today focuses on the value of exercising godliness. It says (and I’ve edited a bit):

What is “profitable”? It is that which does the soul good. Godliness is profitable for all things in that it does the soul good in all circumstances. Here it stands apart and separate from everything of a worldly nature. In this verse, it is distinguished from “bodily exercise that profits a little” by instead being “profitable for all things.”
In sickness, in health, in sunshine, in storms, upon the mount, in the valley, under whatever circumstances the child of God may be, godliness or the exercise of godliness is profitable. These circumstances will even draw it out. It lives in the face of trials, is strengthened by opposition, becomes victorious through defeat, gains the day in spite of every foe.
Godliness does not die away like bodily exercise. It does not bloom and fade away in an hour. It is not like Jonah’s gourd that grew and withered in a night. It does not leave the soul in the horrors of despair when it most needs comfort, nor is it fickle, a false friend that turns its back in the dark and cloudy days of adversity. Godliness is “a friend that loves at all times” because the Author of godliness “sticks closer than a brother.”
Godliness can come to a bed of sickness when the body is racked with pain. It can enter a dungeon as it did with Paul and Silas when their feet were in the stocks. It can go, and has gone, with martyrs to the stake. It soothes the pillow of death, takes the soul into eternity, and therefore is profitable for all things. It is a firm friend, a blessed companion, the life of the soul, the health of the heart. It is “Christ in you, the hope of glory” and God’s own work, grace, Spirit, life, and power, and ends in God’s own happiness. Therefore it is profitable for all things.

Some of the athletes competing in the Olympics may know these verses about bodily exercise. Some may realize that their sport and the disciple it requires has some profit, and that discipline can carry over into their spiritual lives. If they know that, they will also know that the real gold medal winner is not the best physical performance but the exercise of godliness as they compete, the godliness made possible by their relationship with Jesus Christ.