The Lord's Prayer (For Sportspeople)Sample

"Our Father in heaven … Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil."

How much despair and shame would you feel if a film of your inner temptations was sent to your teammates before today’s game? And worse. What if they were to send a film of what you did because of those temptations?

God provides for our most fundamental needs.

In the second half of the Lord’s prayer, Jesus teaches how our Father in Heaven provides for all our physical, emotional, and moral needs.

The inner battle.

Today we focus on the moral temptations we experience deep inside. Jesus knows this is the normal experience of Christians and he wants to bring this reality out into the open. Jesus wants us to admit openly to God that we are struggling, and often failing, with temptations that make us feel sad, even depressed. These could be temptations to doubt God’s goodness as he allows us to experience trials, or temptations from Satan to lure us away from God’s will and good design.

Yet, we instinctively refuse to share the battle with God and others. Jesus encourages us to ask our Father in heaven to help us overcome these terrible thoughts and actions, rather than depend on our own strength to do so.

This liberating approach is reinforced throughout the New Testament. The apostle Paul describes all of us, and then provides a similar cure to our ailment:

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to humanity. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Talk to God. And talk to each other.

We are to pray that our Father in heaven will ‘lead us not into temptation…” We know that God himself will never tempt us but here once again, Jesus is reminding us that we are not in the spiritual battle alone. We ask our Father in Heaven to help us fight temptations that come, and we then ask our Christian friends and colleagues to support us. We are to work as a team in facing the challenges of moral temptation.

Let’s not pretend it is easy to open up about your worst temptations and actions. Equally, let’s be clear that God already knows and has sent Christ to die on your behalf to take the punishment for those thoughts and actions. Further, our Father in Heaven provides

Please fight the strong, hell-initiated inclination to be embarrassed to talk to God and each other about our moral temptations.

Why does it matter at your club?

There won’t be one of your colleagues who doesn’t wrestle with temptations and actions that they are deeply embarrassed about. If you know, in your heart of hearts, that you are no better, God can cultivate divine humility in your approach to others.

This doesn’t mean that you will show up today and start disclosing your deepest temptations. It does mean that if you are ever in a personal conversation about personal issues and you hear the signals that a teammate is wrestling with moral temptations. Then, you can empathize with humility, rather than giving the impression that you are anywhere near temptation-free.

This is how God opens the door in your club to discuss the tragedy of sin that destroys human relationships. The result can be the prospect of a colleague gaining an insight into God’s diagnosis of our fallen nature and then grasping an offer of forgiveness and liberation in Christ. Go play.

Prayer

Lord, thank you that though you know my worst, immoral desires, and actions, you never leave me and are always committed to the life-long work of changing me for the better. Help me to be brave enough to talk to you and others of the battle with moral failure. May I be a brilliant teammate today, kind, and sensitive in a way that allows others to trust me with their deepest fears.

Amen.