Breakfast of Champions

Every year when NFL training camp rolls around, there are guys who come in hungry and fired up, fresh from an off-season workout regimen that has gotten them in playing shape right from the get-go. But every team also has players who show up fat and flabby, twenty pounds over their goal weight, gasping for breath at the first sight of wind sprints. Failure to stick to a plan has cost them the stamina they need to get started on the right foot. They may be able to fool some people with their athletic looks and muscular bodies. But NFL coaches can tell when a guy's been dogging it since January.

You're probably not a professional ball player, but the same principle still applies to you. The concept Jesus taught that "no good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit" (Luke 6:43) has a universal draw on every man. Steady doses of unhealthy choices and activities will bear themselves out in the way we feel, the way we think, the way we stand up to stressful situations. If we're not willing to make sacrifices and faithful habits a regular part of our day, fatigue will not only become a way of life, it will become a belt size everyone else can see better than we can.

"The good man brings good things out of the good stored in his heart" (Luke 6:45). The same goes for stomachs and large muscle groups, too.

Pray this prayer: Lord, make me a man who doesn't have to fake who he is—not in health, not in work ethic, not in family life, not in anything. Help me see that who I become is the result of what I invest.

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