Athletes Bible Quotes

This explosion of athletic wear and rompers is very ironic when you think about how much more sedentary we've become. As we've become less active and higher-tech, we're wearing more and more workout clothes.

Brother Lemon and Abby looked at each other, eyes gleaming in the shadows, and then he stood up. Rummaging in one of his duffle bags, he pulled out an athletic cup and slid it down the front of his pants. He caught Abby staring. "First place they go for," he explained. He adjusted himself and picked up a well worn bible.

Applying these recommendations for a 150-pound (68 kg) athlete, the possible range, excluding the U.S. RDA, would be 3 to 6 ounces (84 to 168 g) of protein each day.

the three most important mental skills for success in endurance sports: commitment, confidence, and patience. Taken together, they form what we typically call mental toughness. Mentally tough athletes are hard to beat.

Comparing marriage to football is no insult. I come from the South where football is sacred. I would never belittle marriage by saying it is like soccer, bowling, or playing bridge, never. Those images would never work, only football is passionate enough to be compared to marriage. In other sports, players walk onto the field, in football they run onto the field, in high school ripping through some paper, in college (for those who are fortunate enough) they touch the rock and run down the hill onto the field in the middle of the band. In other sports, fans cheer, in football they scream. In other sports, players ‘high five’, in football they chest, smash shoulder pads, and pat your rear. Football is a passionate sport, and marriage is about passion. In football, two teams send players onto the field to determine which athletes will win and which will lose, in marriage two families send their representatives forward to see which family will survive and which family will be lost into oblivion with their traditions, patterns, and values lost and forgotten. Preparing for this struggle for survival, the bride and groom are each set up. Each has been led to believe that their family’s patterns are all ‘normal,’ and anyone who differs is dense, naïve, or stupid because, no matter what the issue, the way their family has always done it is the ‘right’ way. For the premarital bride and groom in their twenties, as soon as they say, “I do,” these ‘right’ ways of doing things are about to collide like two three hundred and fifty pound linemen at the hiking of the ball. From “I do” forward, if not before, every decision, every action, every goal will be like the line of scrimmage. Where will the family patterns collide? In the kitchen. Here the new couple will be faced with the difficult decision of “Where do the cereal bowls go?” Likely, one family’s is high, and the others is low. Where will they go now? In the bathroom. The bathroom is a battleground unmatched in the potential conflicts. Will the toilet paper roll over the top or underneath? Will the acceptable residing position for the lid be up or down? And, of course, what about the toothpaste? Squeeze it from the middle or the end? But the skirmishes don’t stop in the rooms of the house, they are not only locational they are seasonal. The classic battles come home for the holidays. Thanksgiving. Which family will they spend the noon meal with and which family, if close enough, will have to wait until the nighttime meal, or just dessert if at all? Christmas. Whose home will they visit first, if at all? How much money will they spend on gifts for his family? for hers? Then comes for many couples an even bigger challenge – children of their own! At the wedding, many couples take two candles and light just one often extinguishing their candle as a sign of devotion. The image is Biblical. The Bible is quoted a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one. What few prepare them for is the upcoming struggle, the conflict over the unanswered question: the two shall become one, but which one? Two families, two patterns, two ways of doing things, which family’s patterns will survive to play another day, in another generation, and which will be lost forever? Let the games begin.

Step One Preparing The Mind Anytime athletes compete, they condition themselves that they may win the prize. An athlete is well self-disciplined, and temperate in all things. They tell their bodies what to do rather than letting their bodies tell them what to do. They have self-control and self-discipline in every aspect of life including their diet, in sleeping, in their behavior, in their conduct, and in their exercise. They keep a goal in mind with a plan of attack, and a determination to win. They exercise their bodies with a plan to optimize themselves in strength to overcome. For example a runner will be more concerned with leg exercises and the parts of the body which help run. They will train for endurance more so than strength, whereas some other athletes may be concerned with upper body strength only. Likewise we need to be conditioned in all things and well-disciplined to exercise ourselves towards godliness. Our target workout is not upper or lower body, but the spiritual body with soundness of mind. Without self-discipline it is impossible to memorize the amount of Scripture we should memorize. It goes without saying that mental conditioning should be a primary focus when attempting to memorize. That way, one may be optimized for memorizing the word of God. A runner exercises their legs for optimum performance and likewise we should also exercise our minds in Christ for memorizing and walking in wisdom. To make the most of memorization time one needs to be fully alert. It is best not to do it after a long day of work, an extremely stressful period of time, early in the morning when you’re groggy, or late at night before you go to bed. Rather it is better to pick a peaceful time of day during which you are most alert. Sometimes a small sip of coffee or other mental stimulant can help wake you up enough for meditation time. In order to be well conditioned mentally, first we need to understand how to be at peace within ourselves. If you’re often stressed out it can be difficult to memorize what you need to. Watch your own heart and be certain that you don’t take things too critically in life. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you take it. If you find yourself stressed out often, it may be more of how you’re handling the situation, than what’s happening to you. Although there may be something stressful happening in your life you may not need to take it so hard. In fact, the Lord calls us to always be rejoicing. As it is written, “Rejoice always” 1Th 5:16  The apostles through hardship and persecution were known to give joyous glory to the Lord. After being beaten by the council in Acts the apostles rejoiced in the Lord for the persecution they received. As we read, “…and when they had called for the apostles and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name.” Act 5:40-41 Likewise our temperance and spiritual state of mind can help us when it comes to time for memorizing the word of God. There are both short term and long term exercises that we should practice. In the short term we should learn to rest in Christ and release things to Him. In the long term we should grow in meekness, not taking things so critically in life that we can be at peace.

Dr. Jones discovered that unlike the nonmedalists, the Olympic podium-placers did these things: ​Paid meticulous attention to their goals ​Had a strong inner drive to stay ahead of the competition ​Concentrated on excellence ​Were not distracted by other people or athletes ​Shrugged off their own failures ​Rebounded from defeat easily ​Never self-flagellated ​Celebrated their wins ​Analyzed the reasons for their success ​Were very confident of their abilities

Colorado Springs can be traced to the city’s founding, but it was in the post-WWII era that the city began to emerge as a nerve center for a politically engaged, globally expansive evangelicalism intent on winning the country, and the world, for Christ. The entrenchment of evangelicalism in Colorado Springs coincided with the growth of the military in the region. In 1954, the United States Air Force Academy was established in Colorado Springs. The city would eventually house three air force bases, an army fort, and the North American Air Defense Command. In the 1960s, the Nazarene Bible College opened its doors, and soon an array of evangelical, charismatic, and fundamentalist churches, colleges, ministries, nonprofits, and businesses took root. Lured by local tax breaks and drawn to the growing epicenter of evangelical power, nearly one hundred Christian parachurch organizations sprouted up within a five-mile vicinity of the academy, including Officers’ Christian Fellowship, the International Bible Society, Youth for Christ, the Navigators, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Christian Booksellers Association, Fellowship of Christian Cowboys, Christian Camping International, and, most significantly, Dobson’s Focus on the Family. 2

As Moore put it, “The Bible says, where your treasure is, that’s where your heart is also.” She maintained that the school district budgeted more for medical supplies like athletic tape for athletic programs at Permian than it did for teaching materials for the English department, which covered everything except for required textbooks. Aware of how silly that sounded, she challenged the visitor to look it up. She was right. The cost for boys’ medical supplies at Permian was $6,750. The cost for teaching materials for the English department was $5,040, which Moore said included supplies, maintenance of the copying machine, and any extra books besides the required texts that she thought it might be important for her students to read. The cost of getting rushed film prints of the Permian football games to the coaches, $6,400, was higher as well, not to mention the $20,000 it cost to charter the jet for the Marshall game. (During the 1988 season, roughly $70,000 was spent for chartered jets.)

They which run in a race run all, but one receives the crown. " But of us on the other hand it is said: " So run that you may obtain. " [ 1 Corinthians 9: 24 ] Our master of the games is not grudging; he does not give the palm to one and disgrace another. His wish is that all his athletes may alike win garlands.

Every successful athlete I have trained has lifted weights for at least part of the season.

(from chapter 20, "Bezalel") "We were getting it: worship was not so much what we did, but what we let God do in and for us. These months of worship in our catacombs sanctuary had made their mark on us. We were a people of God gathered to worship God. The single word, "worship," defined what we were about. The congregational consensus emerged not so much by talking about it, but by simply doing it: worship was our signature activity, the distinctive act that set us apart from all other social structures - schools, businesses, athletic teams, political parties, government agencies. It was not achieved through a Bible study or a discussion that pooled our various expectations and came up with something we could all live with. We simply met every Sunday and worshipped God. We sang together, prayed together, listened to scripture together, received the Sacrament together, baptized our children and converts, and went back to our homes ready to enter a week of work with the blessing of God on us. ...The ordinariness of our lives and the circumstances of the catacombs cleared our minds of romantic and utopian illusions regarding church.

While Jesus does not directly charge his followers with fighting human foes (though there have been those who have found an implicit justification for such in the name of a righteous cause), many of the faith’s adherents have seen the gospel as a call to continue Christ’s cause by engaging in another kind of warfare — one waged on the spiritual plane. The Bible is full of references both to contest — what the ancient Greeks called agon — and to war. Individuals wrestle with God (both metaphorically and literally), and the apostle Paul refers to believers as “athletes” who must “train” their souls and run the race set before them. Believers are to gird themselves about with spiritual “armor,” and wield the “sword of the spirit” in battling unseen forces and directly confronting the conflict between good and evil.

Perhaps the greatest impairment to purposeful practice is the presence of other athletes during a workout.

the Olympic podium-placers did these things: ​Paid meticulous attention to their goals ​Had a strong inner drive to stay ahead of the competition ​Concentrated on excellence ​Were not distracted by other people or athletes ​Shrugged off their own failures ​Rebounded from defeat easily ​Never self-flagellated ​Celebrated their wins ​Analyzed the reasons for their success ​Were very confident of their abilities

Moderation in training means that you seldom explore your physical limits. Athletes often attempt the hardest workouts they can do. Long workouts are much too long, and intensity is often way too high. Most seem to believe that peak fitness comes from pushing their limits several times each week, and rest is viewed as something for sissies. That way of thinking is a sure way to derail your training frequently. Moderation in workout duration and intensity is what you should seek.

Back at Tennessee Tech, Rich was working as Chip Pugh’s graduate assistant. He trained athletes in the morning. Then he’d hit a strength WOD in the college weight room. After that, he cracked open the Bible and read his way through the New Testament, chapter by chapter, in the weight room. Every so often, he’d poke his head into Pugh’s office and ask a question about what he’d just read, if something didn’t match what he’d heard or needed to be unpacked. He wasn’t interested in going to church or participating in any organized religion. “He was trying to get away from that,” says Pugh, reprising his role as weight-room minister. “He was searching for the truth, not what someone else thinks.

People are confounded when a football player puts Bible verses in his eye black or kneels to pray in the end zone. To non-believers, it seems like a kind of spiritual flamboyance or pushy proselytizing when athletes publicly acknowledge God as the central pillar of their game plan. What these spectators rarely consider is why this spiritual orientation is so effective, on and off the field—why it works, and feeds on itself. Instead of “I’m the king of the world if I win, and a failure if I lose,” and the crushing pressure that entails, the spiritually rewired athlete’s internal logic is this: I’m a child of God; that’s my primary identity. God loves me regardless of what happens in this competition. God has given me these talents, these amazing gifts, and it’s my responsibility to use them as best I can, to perform and succeed to the utmost of my ability. But it’s not for personal glory, or to feed my towering ego. Rather, every burst of speed and power is a testament to a higher power whose love transcends any kind of earthly success. The competitive results are not part of that higher reality. But the effort is. The leap toward perfection of effort, a kinetic hymn, is a connection to God. It’s sacred, the way prayer is sacred. And at the same time it is exquisitely concrete. It has mass, speed, position, trajectory, in the now of a throw or a catch or a weight that needs to be lifted. It’s where physics meets the soul. This transcendent frame of reference doesn’t take away competitive pressure. But it takes away the emotional pressure that degrades performance and locks an athlete up. Faith eliminates a lot of psychic gear grinding and inefficiency. For a well-prepared, well-trained athlete, it’s a winning formula. And it was a winning formula for Rich Froning in July 2011.

Dana laughed. "You're going to have to sell me hard on the idea of Carson being the Wolf, Doug. He's charming, smart, knows his Bible cold." Dana smiled. "He's handsome." "What do his looks have to do with anything?" Brandon frowned. "I think we all know what he looks like. We don't need to dwell on--" "I'm not dwelling on his thick blond hair, his tan skin, or his trim athletic build, Brandon. I'm thinking that Marcus might not know what he looks like, and I'm trying to give the professor a visual to work with." "I'm aware of him," Marcus said. Brandon snorted out a breath. "Yeah, Dana, I'm sure that's exactly what you were--" "Enough." Reece raised his palm, the reflection of the flames of the fire pit turning it a dark red.

The Christian belief is that Jesus, as God, is the only one who can bring humanity back to God. He was the only person in history with such a pedigree. 1 Timothy 2:5 tells us plainly, “There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” As a man, he could represent humanity. He was tempted in every way, and yet he never sinned. Jesus is our proverbial “best foot forward” as far as humanity goes. Jesus is also God. As such he is able to serve as a “middle man” and usher us into the very presence of God. The amazing thing is that Jesus offers his righteousness to anyone who will receive it. Rather than being receptive to this offer, we complain there are not other ways to God. While it is incredibly gracious that God would offer any way back to him, people complain that he did not provide ten ways. The offer for salvation is available to all. Instead of being exclusive, Christianity is actually very inclusive. Everyone is welcome to come to Jesus. It does not matter who they are, or what they have done. The Bible tells us, “…whoever believes in him shall have eternal life” (John 3:16). Whether they be Jew, Hindu, Sikh, Greek, Canadian, African, athlete, entrepreneur, lawyer, or academic, the offer is there — come to Jesus.

We are to be tough and focused like soldiers, to compete according to the rules like athletes, and to work hard like farmers.

Your Dreams Matter. Like an athlete trains, so must the student of life. Train the mind, body and spirit, so you may achieve anything. Life is about sharing your dreams/purpose (gifts/passions/talents) with the world and helping others find their way.

For Paul especially, the success of his mission would be confirmed not by how many converts he won, but by those he stood with in the presence of Jesus at his second coming. Paul’s athletic metaphor of the crown in the context of eschatology suggests that, for him, it’s not just how you run the race but how you finish it that is important.