The Contender

I don't do reality television much. If it were not for TIVO I would not watch any of it. You can skip the dumb stuff and watch a one hour program in 30 minutes or less. I guess I go for the obvious. I watch American Idol. There are some pretty good singers on there. I also watch The Contender. That is the boxing show with Sylvester Stallone and Sugar Ray Leonard. Each week there is a team challenge. The team who wins the challenge will send out their "champion" for the week and he gets to select his opponent. There is just something compelling about one man calling another man out and then the two of them just settling it like men in the ring. Even though you do not get to see the entire 5 round fight, blow by blow, you get the idea and you can tell who won the fight. It is quite entertaining and I have noticed something about the show that is really reflective of real life.

The "Christian" competitors suffer from a very poor understanding of the Scripture. They have been taught false doctrine. They remove Scripture from its proper context and use it to their benefit. I see this a lot in Christianity today. Sunday evening’s episode took the cake. At the end I felt very sorry for the young man who lost. A great deal of the episode centered on this young man's faith. He repeatedly made statements like, "God will give me the victory" or "I will overcome because of Jesus". On his way to the ring he said (and I will not quote it exactly), "It will be just like Samson in the Old Testament when he slew 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of a monkey!" (That is not a typo. That is what he said. I know because we ran it back on TIVO three times. For those of you who do not know, Samson did slay 1,000 Philistines but with the jawbone of a DONKEY!) Now, I understand a bit about television. I am sure that the producers played the "let's make the Christian look absurd card". I am sure they played it way up, however he made the statements. He said that God would give him the victory in the ring. He said that he would overcome in the ring because of Jesus. He proceeded to get shellacked and the fight had to be stopped half way through the third round. We have victory over death because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. God will allow us to overcome according to His will. The Scripture does not guarantee our success in the ring or in our own personal aspirations. We must be certain that we do not project worldly success onto our lives as Christ followers.

Folks, I am not writing this to kick the guy while he is down. I am not even questioning his faith or walk with Christ. Wait...yes I am questioning that, but that is not my motivation. The point is this. If we want to know Christ intimately we can. If we want to know the Scripture we can. We are capable of understanding the Scripture and interpreting it correctly if we have the desire to dig deep. The bottom line is that you don't have to be on The Contender to have your faith exposed. The reality of our life will be known everyday. I fear that many of us get in the ring everyday, in the fight of our life, and if there was a referee he would stop the fight because we are beaten, bloodied, and bruised. The knees of our faith get wobbly. It doesn’t have to be that way. You can be a contender. You are called to be a contender.
Jude 1:3 (New International Version)
“Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.”
We are called to contend for the faith. We can do it. The gospel has been entrusted to us. We must fight for it. I leave you with the words of encouragement that Paul wrote to Timothy.
1 Timothy 6:11-12
“But you, Timothy, belong to God; so run from all these evil things, and follow what is right and good. Pursue a godly life, along with faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. [12] Fight the good fight for what we believe.”

Craig