GLMX #108: How to Win At the Olympics of Life

Olympic events get our adrenaline going. The greatest athletes in the world have assembled for the 2012 Summer Games, just as they have since the first modern summer games in 1896.

But it's not easy to compete in the Olympics. In the triathlon, athletes engage in swimming for nearly one mile, bicycling for nearly 25 miles, and then running for six miles.

Or how about the ten thousand meter races? Or the four hundred meter hurdles races?

Olympic competition is for an elite few. Not many can do these things well. For most of us, it's hard enough to get out of bed in the morning. And while few experience the olympic thrill of victory, the rest of us are more familiar with smaller successes and the occasional agony of defeat. Life can be tough, filled with "I should've, could've, or would've" and not to mention "Uh-ohs" instead of gold medals.

Fortunately, there is someone who can empathize with our struggles. He suffered the ultimate agony of defeat: total rejection and pain, so we can win at the olympics of life. 700 years before He walked the earth, Isaiah the prophet had this to say about Jesus in Isaiah 53:3, "He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief."

Yet He suffered defeat for us. Verse 8 says, "...for the transgression of my people was he stricken."

And then He had the greatest victory of all time: Rising from the dead! Verse 11 says, "He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied." Jesus defeated death, lives forever, and has made a way for you and me to do the same.

+ Plus, listen to Mandisa singing "Victorious"