I love Championship weekend in the NFL playoffs. Yesterday, the Patriots beat the Baltimore Ravens to become the AFC Champions and the Giants beat the San Francisco 49ers to become the NFC Champions. The Patriots and the Giants will now meet in Indianapolis on Feb. 5th at the Super Bowl. There are so many life lessons to be learned from sports. One main thing that we leaned from yesterday’s games is that the game will always come down to fundamentals. The teams that have good fundamentals win more games than the ones that do not.
During each game, there was one critical error that took place. Ironically, both errors occurred on the Special Teams. For the Ravens, the kicker missed the last field goal that would have sent the game into overtime giving them a chance to win the game. For the 49ers, the kick returner fumbled the ball in overtime, which gave the ball back to the Giants who went down and scored a field goal to win the game.
From a fan’s perspective, the special teams are often over looked. When the special teams units do their jobs correctly, you hardly ever hear about it. If you watch the games you probably realize that the television networks generally don’t show many replays of the special teams. When a field goal is kicked or a punt is fair caught in the air, they often cut to a commercial never to bring up what happened on the play. However, if there is a mistake, then they will replay it over and over again.
This got me to thinking, in the Christian life there are key fundamentals. These fundamentals if done correctly, hardly ever get any attention. However, if you have poor fundamentals, it can lead to costly mistakes that can cause you to lose more than you want to. Often times people make critical errors in life and they try to blame it on their circumstances. The truth is just like the players in the game yesterday, we cannot blame our mistakes on our circumstances.
While there are many fundamentals that can lead to success in life, there is one that Paul speaks about that can cover pretty much all of them. Ephesians 4:1 I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. What Paul is telling us is “Do what you are suppose to do!” This sounds so simple, but its easy to say and much harder to do. I find that this concept is common knowledge, but not common practice. Why is that? When we try to do right in our own strength it will lead to disaster. We need the help of the Lord to keep us on track.
