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  Jeremy Hoover's Ministry Website

Preparation and Spiritual Life

10/29/2014

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I've been reading an excellent book on personal leadership and growth by Jay Bilas. The book is called Toughness. Jay Bilas was a former college basketball player at Duke and is currently a college basketball analyst with ESPN. He discusses several principles in his book that, if followed, enable one to build resiliency and toughness in life.

One of his early chapters is about preparation. His focus in that chapter is that preparation develops the ability to persevere through whatever difficulty you might face. To a casual fan, college or pro basketball might look like little more than a pickup game played at a higher level. To a player, coach or analyst, the game is much more, and preparation is key to that. Jay wrote that he spends more time and works harder to prepare to announce a game than he did as a player getting ready to play a game.

How does this idea of preparation intersect with our spiritual lives? I've written before about Jesus' teaching about diligence and watchfulness. But we can go further. If the summation of God's call on our lives is to love him with our entire being and to love our neighbor as ourselves, how does preparation play into this?

Simply, we must prepare if we are going to live the life God calls us to. We practice, we think, we read, we pray. All these things are "practice" that help us prepare so that in the moment, we are ready to serve God. For these reasons, Paul writes both, "Train yourself in godliness" (1 Timothy 4:7) and "Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one" (1 Corinthians 9:25).

By applying the concept of preparation--by reading the Bible, examining the details of our lives, praying for strength, help and guidance, and thinking ahead about how we will handle the different temptations and opportunities in our lives--we will be diligent and watchful as Jesus calls us to be. 

Think about Paul's encouragement to train yourself in godliness. How will you do this? 
1 Comment
AussiePete link
10/29/2014 11:37:13 am

We recently change our small group structure so that members collect a discussion guide on their way into worship each Sunday and then can answer the questions ahead of their group meeting during the week. The group discussions relate to the sermon topic. I recently received this note from one of my group leaders that supports your post.

Following up Sunday's sermon with growth group discussion is going well. It requires all of us to take part in feeding our soul and not leave it in the hands of the minister. I believe the old saying, "you get out of the sermon what you put into it"...folks are really starting to putmore into the sermon through conversations, growth groups and actually demonstrating the actions it in their own lives and the lives of others. This change is good; it's real good.

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    This blog is for articles and book reviews. I post my sermons at my Sermons page, where you can listen to sermons online or download them in MP3 format.

    Although I work for the Otisville Church of Christ in Otisville, Michigan, this blog represents my own thoughts and does not necessarily correspond to the views and workings of the Otisville Church of Christ.

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