Fighting Our Way Through the Red-Zone

Comparing Spritual Warfare to a football game is seemingly becoming a manly theme. My Wednesday night men's Bible classes is currently reading a book called, Every Man, God's Man by Stephen Arterburn and Kenny Luck. One of the first chapters compares the struggles men have to being bogged down in the "Red Zone".

For those not familiar with football, the "Red Zone" is the part of the playing field between an opponent's 20 yard line and the End-Zone. It is at this point where some of the most dramatic moments in football take place. The Defense is now protecting their end-zone. They are focused on preventing their opponents from gaining even one more inch. They play tougher here than on any other part of the field. They seem to do even better than their best to keep their oppenents out of their end-zone and scoring points.

The offensive strategy also changes from looking for large gains in yardage to focusing on short yard gains to push past the hardened defense to reach their desired goal, which is their opponent's end-zone. They often resort to trick plays or the use of brut force to push their opponents backwards.

I guess you could compare a man's struggle to become a man of God to playing football. The Bible tells us to put on the armor of God, much like putting on a playing uniform. The Bible gives us strategies and moral guidelines in which to live our lives and guide our families, much like a playbook. It is our manly responsiblity to study the "playbook" and put on our "armor" before we attempt to take on our enemy. Believe me, the enemy has studied our playbook and he knows our battle plans better than we do.

The enemy, however; has convinced us that since he knows God's strategy for us, that we must switch strategies in order to try and trick him. This is just what the enemy wants us to do. What we fail to realize is, that even if Satan does know our playbook, that the playbook will still work against him. Satan has no defense against the Truth, and the Will of God for our lives. It's when we switch to our understanding of the game, that we get bogged down.

The closer we follow the game plan of God, the closer we get to our goal of an eternal life with God. This is our Goal. This is the Red-Zone. Satan's defense and attacks against us get stronger and he will do anything to distract us from following the gameplan set forth by God. It seems we can get no closer to our goal despite everything we try. We get bogged down and many times collapse under the pressure of a battle toughened Satan.

We must stay focused!! We must not give up!! We must remember, we already know the outcome of the game. WE WIN!! God will get us trough the Red-Zone, if we just rely on Him.

As you can tell football is not my sport of choice, so my thoughts may wonder a bit. I still hope you understood my message though. Maybe next time I can use a baseball reference.