The Super Bowl last week garnered a record number of viewers in the U.S. : 111.3 million.

Hundreds of players in the NFL train year round for the opportunity to square off on television’s biggest stage. Only two teams and few dozen players will make that stage. One team walks off the LOSER.

But they train like maniacs for months to get to that stage so that over one hundred million people can see them. They train for glory.

And the world population is around 6.8 billion.

These players put their bodies through a lot of discipline and 99.8% of the world will NOT see what they are doing. Yet, they do it willingly. It is the glory of the game. It is fleeting. Everyone knows the Giants won’t repeat next year. It’s the NFL. It’s rare to get to the Super Bowl even in back to back years, let alone win.

For that very fleeting glory those men are willing to lay it on the line.

Meanwhile, millions of Christians have the opportunity to “play” for eternal glory. Not for the adoration of millions of viewers. It is for an audience of One. And it is not simply to be noticed by the One. It is the opportunity to lay it all on the line so that OTHERS can have the chance to see the One…

And we can’t get ourselves out of bed sometimes. We think about going to church for worship. We scramble to find our Bibles. We give our pocket change to missions.

Anything wrong with this picture?

²⁴ Don’t you know that all the runners in the stadium run, but only one gets the prize? So run to win. ²⁵ Everyone who competes practices self-discipline in everything. The runners do this to get a crown of leaves that shrivel up and die, but we do it to receive a crown that never dies. ²⁶ So now this is how I run—not without a clear goal in sight. I fight like a boxer in the ring, not like someone who is shadowboxing. ²⁷ Rather I’m landing punches on my own body and subduing it like a slave. I do this to be sure that I myself won’t be disqualified after preaching to others.(1 Cor. 9:24-27, CEB)