Align Your Will to God’s Plan (September 28, 2023)

“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” (Romans 12:2)

As you probably know from almost daily media coverage, conference realignment has taken the collegiate sports world by storm, threatening to upset traditional rivalries and transform the face of big-time NCAA sports. Motivated primarily by money, many universities that have long been recognized for their stellar athletic programs have bolted from one Power Five (most prominent) conference to another, shifting the balance of power.

The objective of realignment is to cash in on tens of millions of dollars in additional revenues by affiliating with conferences that have extremely lucrative media contracts to broadcast the games of these elite and highest-earning team affiliations in collegiate sports. College athletics, most notably football and basketball, have become more than just highly popular sports spectacles; they are big business.

With whom they are aligned or affiliated with is certainly important in the effort by prestigious universities to stay on top in collegiate athletics; it is also a crucial component of one’s earthly associations on a spiritual level. As followers of Jesus Christ, Christians have been made holy or set apart from this world which we are passing through enroute to the heavenly home where we will spend eternity with Christ, the Son of the living god and our precious LORD and Savior.

During our journey, believers are instructed to avoid alignment with worldly practices, ideas, and values that often exclude God and conflict with the moral standards and Christian principles that we hold dear and seek to apply to our daily lives. We are not to make temporal worldly pursuits such as passing possessions, power, and pleasure our primary focus but to obediently affiliate ourselves with God through faith in Christ, laying up eternal rewards and treasures in heaven.

We seek to align our hearts and minds with the absolute truth of God’s Word and to live in obedience to His will. We walk by faith, seeking to please God rather than a wicked culture that increasingly rejects biblical truth and scorns Christians. Pursuing a Christ-centered lifestyle won’t draw worldly acclaim, and we won’t be cheered like avid fans do their favorite college teams, but our affiliation with Jesus will bring an eternal inheritance that will never fade away.

“Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it…Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air.” (1 Corinthians 9:24-26)