Ready or not, it is time.  Get the school colors out, and dust off the stadium seats.  Oh, and apparently stock up on water bottles.  Man, it is hot!

Football is obviously loved, supported, and debated in the South.  And what I find interesting is that we can learn a lot from the game.

Consider Coach Vince Lombardi – way back when he coached the Green Bay Packers.  In 1961 they lost the big game even though they had been ahead.  When they got back together to prepare for the season, those professional football players were ready to pick up where they had left off.  But Lombardi stood up, held up a football, and put them in their place by saying, “Gentlemen, this is a football.”

He understood that the only way to be prepared was to get back to the basics.  They had to keep the main thing as the main thing.  Skills, teamwork, and strength are important, but they will come with time; and they are useless without focus.

And that is true in life, is it not?

No one makes it to Sports Center without a long road that got them there.  The fundamentals have to be practiced, honed, and never abandoned.  The basics must be ingrained, and then success comes.

Jesus made our fundamentals clear.  There is an internal focus and an external focus that we must master in life.

Internally, Jesus said in Matthew 6:33, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.”  Externally, He told us in Matthew 28:18-20, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.  Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the So and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.  And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Have you mastered those things?  Are you daily working on them?

Seek God’s kingdom above all else.  Seek to live like He wants you to.  That is what we have to do if we want God to bless our lives.

Make disciples everywhere you go.  Help others know Jesus and grow in Him.  That is what we have to do with everyone we can. There are plenty of other things we can do (and often should do), but nothing matters as much as doing what God wants us to do.  Nothing should keep us from doing what God wants us to do.  This is the football.  This is our “basics.”  This is our challenge.  Let’s go!

MacArthur wrote a great book on some of the fundamentals of the faith. Click the picture below to check it out for yourself…