Before every football season, I ask each one of my incoming freshmen players the same question: “Why couldn’t the wolf catch the rabbit?” I hear all kinds of answers. The rabbit was super-quick. He was more familiar with the terrain and found a good hiding spot. Perhaps the wolf had an injured foot, or the ground was slippery and he couldn’t get enough traction. The most common response? It just wasn’t the wolf’s day.
The question stems from one of Aesop’s famous fables, a story of a hungry, cocky lead wolf that could not catch a potentially tasty rabbit in front of his beleaguered pack. But the lead wolf, huffing and puffing, knew exactly why he was failing. “I was running for my lunch,” he says (paraphrased), “but the rabbit was running for his life.”
You see, you can’t truly go all out in this life until you are All In. The rabbit had a motivational edge–life or death–that the wolf simply could not duplicate in this fable.
When it comes to intimacy with Jesus Christ and expression of our faith in Him, are we going all out? We’ll only get there by first being All In. Many of us don’t realize the stakes of our faith. Instead, we get caught in the rut of “next basic need” mode, where we’re relying on God only for the next need in our lives, whether it’s food, clothes, money, performing well, or maintaining our jobs, reputation and relationships. When we’re not in need, He seems to lose our attention.
In small group studies, sometimes I’m astonished at the prayer requests of myself and so many other believers. All too often we never make it past our own personal needs and desires. Painfully, I see this in my own sports world prayers, which always seem to be about my coaching, my players, my recruits and my team reaching the world’s definition of success. Don’t get me wrong, all of those things deserve prayer, but, when it comes to glorifying God and advancing His Kingdom, are we truly All In?
Back to the wolf and the rabbit. How do we do life with God instead of merely lunch with God? How do we get All In with Christ, so we can then go all out for Him? It’s simpler than we think. Jesus gave us a blueprint when he rebuked folks who didn’t consider the very high stakes of following Him. In Luke 11:39-41 He says, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not He who made the outside make the inside also? But give as alms (or offer yourself unselfishly) to clean your insides which makes everything clean for you.”
All out starts and is fueled by being All In, daily recognizing in our hearts and minds just how much we are loved by Jesus, that He would leave His throne and come to die in our place. That’s the highest stakes there could ever be! How could we not respond to a love like that? And He continues to love us, even in our sin.
Jesus didn't do all this just to “do lunch.” He came to be our Savior, our Lord, our Love, and to do life eternally. Years ago, my parents showed their unconditional love for me by adopting me, and the sacrificial love I gave back to them was an overflow from what they first gave me. It wasn’t a duty or command. It was a privilege! But here’s where it gets really good: Christ adopted you and me, as Ephesians 1:4-5 says: “In love, He predestined us for adoption as sons (and daughters) through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will.”
Did you catch that? He rescued you and me in love! It wasn’t about lunch! Jesus was All In, and He yearns for us to be All In and live an all out life for Him. The stakes are high, y’all. The Apostle Paul understood this when, in Romans 12:1-2, he said that our response to God’s All In love is to overflow in our all out love back to Him, by the transformation of how we think. It all starts on the inside.
I’ve challenged my players for years with the words in 1 John 4:19, where John reminds us that perfect love casts out fear and then says, “We love because He first loved us.” When we truly understand and recognize God’s love for us on a daily basis, my friends, we will never be the same. All In leads to all out!
When you fully grasp how All In Jesus has been with you, the overflow will result in an all out expression back to Him that will astound and inspire the world around you. You’ll unleash an unparalleled passion, effort and wisdom into every athletic endeavor. People might disagree, which you can’t control, but they’ll most certainly notice. It’s rare seeing someone live like that today.
That’s the great reward of being all in for Christ, summed up by Colossians 3:23-24 (ESV): “Whatever you do, work heartily [All In and all out] as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.”
--This article appears in the July/August 2014 issue of FCA Magazine. To view the issue in its entirety digitally, click here: http://bit.ly/fcamagvol56issue4
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