A 15-year-old sports chant, “I believe that we will win,” was adopted by fans of the U.S. team playing in the World Cup and shouted from the housetops. But all of the passion and the unity and the believing and the positive vibes didn’t change a thing. The American team was knocked out of the running last week with a loss to Belgium. The chant, which was invented by a cheerleader for the U.S. Naval Academy during the 1999 Army-Navy football game, has been called “the trendiest chant in American sports,” but it is a meaningless thing. Professional sports is one of the gods of these end times. None can beat the popularity of soccer at a global level, but pro sports in every form is an empty thing. What players accomplish at a stadium somewhere has absolutely nothing to do with the real lives of their fans. The emotional high is as pathetically empty as a pretty soap bubble. There is nothing godly about it. Pro sports is 90+ percent pride, boasting, worldly cool, covetousness, gambling, drinking, drugging, cursing, anger, immodesty, and neglect of the house of God. It is perfectly summarized in 1 John 2:16 as “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” It is idolatry in one of its purest forms. I was a serious baseball fan for awhile in the 1990s, and I regret it. I threw away many precious, fleeting hours on vanity that could have been devoted to things of eternal value. (Friday Church News Notes, July 11, 2014, www.wayoflife.org, [email protected], 866-295-4143) Comments are closed.
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