Walk of Life, Day 31-December, 2020- Thoughts from the Book of Proverbs.
THE LORD JESUS CHRIST – OUR COACH.
Proverbs 31:1 “The words of king Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him.”
A believer’s life is compared to a race in 1Corinthians 9:24-27. In general, athletic race participants have a coach who would train them to achieve their goal, that is, success. When our spiritual journey is being compared to a race, then we ought to have a coach.
Once there lived a group of young girls from high school who were aspiring to win a running race. That year they happen to get a new coach. The girls did not like their coach initially. One of the girls was very rude with the coach and always did exactly opposite to what the coach said. She eventually influenced the other weaker girls of the group to withdraw from the group and motivated them to work on their own without a coach. She depended and was confident on her running skills, that she felt that having a coach was unnecessary for her. One fine day, on the day of race, she could see herself running while her friends who were trained by the coach cross the finish line.
This is the brief story of a Christian movie – “Remember your Goal”. There are few important points that we need to glean from this story.
In our spiritual journey we come across two trainers or two coaches. One is the Lord Jesus and the other is the Satan. Though Satan makes a very bad coach and does not fulfill his duty as a coach, still initially he appears to be a coach.
Firstly, the aim of the coach is not to magnify his name and bring glory to himself, but his happiness lies in the victory of his student. To see his student, trained by him get the medal and applause, he does a lot of hard work, he leaves no stone unturned.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the perfect coach that we are blessed to have with us to train us in our spiritual walk. He trains us to be perfect to receive the rewards in the kingdom of Heaven. Whereas, Satan on the other hand trains us and rejoices when we fall and end up in the hell fire.
Secondly, the trainer does not leave the student practice alone even for a single day. Every day the trainer would train his student even if he thinks that his student can do it all alone. When the student receives the medal and looks back, he finds the constant support of his coach.
Once again, the Lord Jesus Christ reveals himself as the best coach. His promise to us is – “I will never leave you nor forsake you. Hebrews 13:5”. Whatever might be the circumstance, our Lord Jesus will never leave us alone. Whereas, the bad coach Satan would push us and leave us. Do you remember the game carroms? When you play this board game, you have coins and a striker. You aim at a coin and hit it using a striker. After being hit by the striker, the coin goes and falls into the hole. Satan is like that striker; he will tempt you and instigate you. He makes you to start on the road of destruction and leaves you there. Same way how the striker does not follow the coin to the hole, Satan does not follow us till we reach the hell fire. We automatically reach that dreadful destination just by a push given by Satan.
Dear friend, it is highly important for us to introspect whom have we enabled to be our coach? If it is the Lord Jesus, ‘Praise the Lord’: for we are in good hands. If it is Satan, ’Beware’: for we will end up in hell if we do not disown his authority as early as possible.
Having the Lord Jesus as our coach, we ought to know the rules and regulations.
- Never assume yourself to be greater than the Lord Jesus. Do not think that He has not gone through what you are going through. This is completely false because He went through all that you are going through today and has set a good example for us to follow.
- Even if you think that you can do it all by yourself, do not go ahead without seeking God’s help.
Lastly, remember that many other believers younger to you, newly joined members would be taking you as their role model. If you go by your pride, you fall and make them fall too. Set a good example like Paul who says, “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.” (1Corinthians 11:1).
