The 2016 Olympic Games are drawing to a close and continue a heritage of games that stretches back to ancient Greece.

Athletes throughout Greece would converge on the Isthmian Games every two years during the spring. The athletes would compete in footraces, wrestling, boxing, throwing the discus and javelin, the long jump, chariot racing, poetry reading and singing.  Since there were no permanent accommodations at the site, the people stayed in tents in the surrounding fields.

The Apostle Paul in several passages of the New Testament uses the games as illustrations of his life. Towards the end of his life he said: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth , there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me at that day, and not to me only but unto to all them also that love His appearing.” 2 Timothy 4:7,8

If we were to view our life like a race in the Olympic Games, how well do we think we will do at the end? Do we expect to receive a reward from God at the end of life, as Paul did? Could it be that as we think of all we have said and done over our ‘course’ that all we can reasonably expect from God is judgement? The Lord Jesus told of a man who  died and, ‘in hell, he lifted up his eyes being in torments’ Luke 16:23

Thankfully, all who come to see that they are failed sinners in the sight of God, that they will never win His favour, can turn to the hope of the gospel message: “For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” John 3:17