Free to Be Our Best

As coaches and athletes, we put all of our hearts, bodies, and emotions into our endeavors. We’re instructed to “give it all we’ve got,” and as we do, we begin to understand what Paul was saying to the Colossian Christians.

In the second part of this verse, Paul seemed to communicate what could happen if our efforts were fully focused on honoring God rather than man. But that’s not easy in today’s performance-based, self-centered society, where we attach our personal value, worth, and dignity to our performance. The more we work to gain notoriety or to impress others, the more we find we are not free at all to be the people we were created by God to be. In fact, the pressure to win that most of us feel, as well as the fear we have of failing, only guarantees a roller coaster performance, never our best.

The good news is that Paul experienced first hand one of the most freeing principles of the Christian life: That what we do is not who we are! He wanted us to understand our value is based solely on what Jesus did for us on the cross, not on what we can do through our own effort! When we understand and accept the reality of Christ’s offering, we are free to be what we were intended to be. And when we experience His unconditional and sacrificial love (like Paul did!), our hearts want to seek and honor God more!

Knowing our ability comes from God and that He loves us regardless of how we perform eliminates the need we have to perform for others. It frees us from allowing their opinions to control our decisions, because we’re too busy putting our whole heart into our effort for the Lord!