"God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast and when I run, I feel his pleasure."
Sport is good
For everything God created is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. 1 Timothy 4:4God provides everything richly for our enjoyment. 1 Timothy 6:17
Thank God for football* is the title of a recent book. It is also a wholly Christian sentiment. If we believe that sport – our ability to play and enjoy it - is part of God’s creation then it is not only right but our duty to thank God for it.
Sport – like anything else - can become an idol. We can worship the gift rather than the giver. But sport is no more likely to become an idol than money, work, power, sex etc.
Sport is provided for our enjoyment. Don’t let us be led astray by “Puritan” thinking that if we are enjoying ourselves, we need to be careful. God wants the best for us and training the bodies we have been given and pushing them to the extreme is being the person God has made us.
Let us see sport as part of God’s world, seek to play it Christianly – fair, loving and with integrity – respecting our team-mates, opponents and officials. Let us seek to use our opportunities to share the good news of Jesus in our sport.
But, yes, let us thank God for football, cricket, hockey, basketball etc
*= Thank God for Football!, By Peter Lupson, Azure (SPCK), 2006. The title is based on the following quotation from Lord Arthur Kinnaird, who played in nine FA Cup Finals in the nineteenth century and spoke for many of us when he said "that all right-minded people have good reason to thank God for the great progress of this popular national game” [Association Football].
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