“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” — 2 Corinthians 5:17
A New Year
Today is the beginning of another year.
The year 2019 has arrived. It’s fun to think about all the things that will happen in sports this year. Who will win the Super Bowl? How about the Daytona 500? Can the Red Sox repeat as World Series champs? Is this the year the Warriors miss out on the NBA Finals?
Trying to figure out what will happen this year in sports, although it’s often unpredictable, can be a lot of fun. But there’s a promise God makes in His Word about all of us for this year that is never unpredictable.
If we stay connected to Christ, we are a brand-new creation each and every day. He has made all things new and as Paul says in 2 Corinthians, the old has passed away.
It’s a new year, but it’s also a new day to begin moving forward in Christ.
We’re a NEW creation!
Happy New Year.
If you would like to submit a reader devotional, please email all submissions to jason@sportsspectrum.com.
Allen Iverson got caught up in a huge brawl at a bowling alley when he was 17 years old. He went to jail for his crimes, leading some people to think his life was ruined and he wouldn’t ever fulfill his potential to be a great professional athlete.
But his life was like an unfinished painting as he sat in that cell with no freedom and a dim future. He was originally sentenced to 15 years and expected to spend at least five years behind bars, but Virginia Governor Douglas Wilder granted him clemency. Iverson was released after four months and he then earned his high school diploma at an alternative school.
Soon, Allen went to Georgetown University where he excelled as a player and was drafted by the Philadelphia 76ers as the first overall pick in 1996. He led the Sixers to the NBA Finals in 2001. He also played for the Denver Nuggets, Detroit Pistons and Memphis Grizzlies. He stood only 6 feet tall in the valley of the giants in the NBA, but often scored more points than most guys much taller than him, capturing four scoring titles. He was an 11-time All-Star during his 14-year NBA career, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2016. Many people are inspired by Iverson’s story of success after an arguably bad beginning.
When we make hasty judgments about the character of people, we’re often looking at a person in the beginning or middle of their lives, and we don’t see the whole story as God does. If someone saw us during our most embarrassing moments, we wouldn’t want them to give an evaluation of our entire lives based upon one bad decision or one fit of anger. However, we often disqualify people from society based upon a slanted view of the real person. Though consequences are part of mistakes and wrongdoing, we all need another chance to learn to do better and change direction after stumbling.
The Bible is full of stories of second chances and using flawed people for God’s glory. In Exodus, we see God forgiving Moses after he killed the Egyptian, though He did allow Moses live for 40 years in Midian as an exile. Afterward, He called Moses to become one of the most important leaders in history.
When Jonah refused to preach in Nineveh as God called him to, the Lord put him in the belly of a whale. But He showed mercy after he repented and allowed Jonah to preach again.
We need to be slow to cast judgment on the value or potential of a life — only God knows the heart and can judge a life. None of us are perfect, and yet God can and will still use us when we are surrendered to Him. We are not our past, nor the middle of our journeys. God gets the final say in how our lives will play out, we just need a willing heart. He alone sees the whole picture.
Just as Psalm 66:6 encourages us, we should tell the world of what God has done in our lives and listen to the stories of others. God uses personal testimonies as a powerful tool to reveal His character and transforming grace, to encourage believers, and to draw others to faith.
— Bill Kent, Pastor of Memorial Baptist Church, Sylvania, Georgia
Spain's Nico Williams celebrates after scoring during a Nations League match, Sept. 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” — Galatians 2:20
Someone thought it was a mid-life crisis. In reality, it was a door the Lord opened that has been such a wonderful gift. It started when my husband learned that two of his assistant cross-country coaches wouldn’t be able to come back for the next school year. Summer practices were starting soon and he was going to have up to 40 young people, and be down two coaches. I volunteered to help. I thought it would be a summer gig, but a year later, I’m still out there. My husband oversees the program and works with the varsity teams, and I get to work alongside him and two other great coaches.
Year 1 was the honeymoon phase. My husband did the heavy lifting and I got to be the easygoing coach. Year 2 has been different. My husband still does the heavy lifting, but I’m learning more about the weight a coach carries. There are so many decisions you make each day, from training challenges to how to handle a discipline issue to being a sounding board for young athletes who are also carrying a lot on their plates.
Long after practice is over, I find myself replaying interactions and wondering if I handled them correctly. It can wear on you. The good thing about feeling overwhelmed is that it is a wonderful reminder that we need God. Perhaps that’s why I found myself talking to God about Galatians 2:20 (above) recently. I’d heard it many times, but what would it look like day in and day out to acknowledge Christ and invite Him to live in and through me?
I headed out for practice. Our normal afternoon practice had to be rescheduled due to higher-than-normal heat and humidity levels. It was Day 2 of 5:45 a.m. workouts and I was feeling it. I realized I needed to look to God for new strength. I saw several of our runners and they looked weary too. We paused to pray for new strength as a team. I can only answer for how the Lord answered that prayer for me. I had started practice weary, but God met me in some special ways and before I knew it, practice was over, our miles were logged, and my heart felt lighter.
I headed with the team back to the gym to get them in the locker rooms so they could get ready for school. As I was leaving, I was still thinking about the goodness of God. I noticed a teacher walking toward me. Her arms were full with a load she was carrying. I offered to help and she accepted. As we carried her things to her classroom, she thanked me and said she had wondered how she was going to manage getting into the school with her arms full. I was happy to help her. As I walked back toward the parking lot, I heard a buzz. My GPS watch was pushing out a notification. It had one word on it: Goal!
God in His goodness connected the dots. Looking to God for strength, seeing the needs of those around us, praying for others, and offering a helping hand — yet not I, but Christ. I make things so difficult running around like a crazy woman sometimes, but the goal is just to live each moment with a dependence on God and a love for others.
I know I coach cross-country, but at that moment, I pictured a soccer player sliding on a field of bright green grass after the perfect shot. I could hear the words of an excited announcer: “GOOOAAAALLLLL!” And as I type this, I can’t help but notice a word play and think of Jesus’ words to us: go into all the world and preach the Gospel … Goal!
Dallas Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer, Sept. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
The Dallas Cowboys have a new word to describe their mindset on and off the field each week: “Godfidence.” It’s a word head coach Brian Schottenheimer brought into the team’s vocabulary as he looks to build a culture of faith, purpose and brotherhood.
For Schottenheimer, his faith in Jesus isn’t merely a motivational tool that he pulls out when things are going well. It’s at the center of how he views his life and his work, and it’s something he’s made clear is the most important thing to him since he took over as head coach in January 2025.
“That’s who he is,” quarterback Dak Prescott said during his press conference after Sunday’s 34-30 win over Houston. “That’s who I am, and that’s who a lot of our guys on our team are. Just trying to be contagious, understanding that we’re all here because of God and we’re all here to serve a greater purpose.”
Prescott has been with the Cowboys for 11 seasons and played under three different head coaches. He said there’s a noticeable difference in the culture under Schottenheimer, especially as it pertains to players feeling more comfortable in expressing and being vocal about their faith.
There usually aren’t many empty seats at team chapels, which Prescott said is also a credit to team chaplain Jonathan Evans and his father, Dr. Tony Evans.
“I’ve been through so much in my life. God’s always been the reason and Who I fall back on and my refuge,” Prescott said. “I can’t thank Him enough and never will be able to thank Him enough. So just to see that transcend throughout our team, starting with our head coach, is special. It’s something we take pride in, but at the end of the day, it’s about giving Him the glory.”
The Cowboys are 2-2 and enter a primetime game on “Thursday Night Football” against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Dallas is averaging 30.5 points per game, which is tied for second in the NFL, with Schottenheimer in his second year as head coach and primary playcaller after serving as the offensive coordinator under Mike McCarthy from 2023 to 2024.
Schottenheimer’s message on the field so far this season has been about consistency and finishing. And connecting it all is the idea that they’re one family. Schottenheimer makes no apologies for what fuels him.
“God is the center of everything that I do — as a husband, father, football coach, whatever,” he said in his press conference Monday. “I think it’s very strong among our team.”
He displays that faith with his action, but also publicly on his body. He has five tattoos that he says remind him of his “whys.” On his left forearm is “Jireh” which is Hebrew for “The Lord will provide.” Near that one are three nails in the form of a cross.
When McCarthy and the Cowboys agreed to part ways, there was always a risk that coordinators like Schottenheimer would also be left out of a job if the new head coach wanted to bring in their own hires. At 51 years old, Schottenheimer had put together a lengthy resume as a position coach and coordinator, so he’d likely be able to find work on another staff. But the thought of having to move and start over again elsewhere crossed his and his wife Gemmi’s minds.
Their faith kept them grounded, she recently said.
“If we didn’t have our faith, I think we could’ve crumbled many times,” Gemmi said this summer on the “Twins Take Podcast.” “This is such an unstable life that we live and you never know what’s next. It’s really year-to-year and it’s a lot of uncertainty. But I think we’ve always had this solid foundation of knowing that the Lord’s never going to leave us and He’s never going to guide us in the wrong direction. We may not like it, but I think we know that what we’re doing is exactly what we’re supposed to be doing.”
Whatever his next path looked like, Schottenheimer still hoped that being a head coach would be part of his resume one day. And as it turned out, he didn’t have to move, and his chance to become a head coach also came. Instead of hiring an external candidate, owner and general manager Jerry Jones elevated Schottenheimer to head coach ahead of the 2025 season.
“We were really just obedient in that regard and we were just like, ‘Whatever You have in store for us is what’s meant to be,’ and then it happened,” Gemmi said. “You have to just trust that whatever path you’re on, that’s exactly where God has you and you’re supposed to be there. You never know when something is going to happen.”
Among his many stops, Schottenheimer recalled being a quarterbacks coach under his father, longtime NFL coach Marty Schottenheimer, for the San Diego Chargers in 2003. Team chaplain Shawn Mitchell made a profound impact on him and his faith, and the younger Schottenheimer felt led to start a coach’s Bible study. He was just 28 years old and it was about six months before he found out he had thyroid cancer. Meanwhile, Gemmi was three months pregnant with their son, Sutton.
Brian credits that season of life to helping him get much more connected with God personally, and it also helped strengthen his and Gemmi’s marriage and faith walks.
“Some of the things that we’ve been through are bigger than football,” he said on the podcast. “Football is our job. It’s not our life. We love it. It’s what we do, but it all starts with God.”
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” — James 1:2-4
If you’ve ever been cut from a team, you know how devastating that feeling can be. You start to ask questions of yourself and wonder if you’re good enough or worked hard enough. Feelings of inadequacy and comparison start to take over. For pro athletes, their sport is how they support themselves and their families. Getting cut can put them in a desperate situation where they’re scrambling to land on a roster somewhere else.
It’s a tough time for any athlete at any level when they get cut. I remember not making the freshman baseball team in high school and being so despondent that I immediately called my dad in tears to deliver the news. The embarrassment I felt the rest of the day at school was immense, and I just wanted to crawl into a hole and seclude myself from my friends who made the team and were celebrating.
Something I love about sports, though, especially as an activity for young people, is how often the lessons we learn from them are directly applicable to life. When you’re cut from a team, you’re faced with a decision to give up or to keep persevering. You can let being cut define you and decide your future, or you can let it motivate you and persevere through it by becoming a better version of yourself.
The same is true in life when you lose your job, a relationship fails, or anything else doesn’t go your way and you experience loss and disappointment. We know these things will come in life, and thankfully we have a playbook for how to respond.
The Bible is full of teaching about perseverance, such as in James 1:2-4 (above), which tells us to consider our trials as “pure joy.” We know our suffering produces perseverance, and our perseverance produces character. That character produces hope, which does not put us to shame (Romans 5:3-5).
Hardship is never fun in the moment, but as Christians we can embrace them differently than those who aren’t in Christ. We’re promised that our suffering will ultimately be for good so long as we persevere through them.
I decided to hang up the cleats after being cut and instead poured my effort into tennis, which ended up being a good choice. I recognized baseball may not be in my future, but I kept the faith that God had something else planned for me to use my athletic ability in some way. More than 20 years later, I’ve made a career out of tennis by coaching at the high school level. God worked it all out for His good.
My prayer is that you’ll persevere through your trials and continue trusting in God’s plan. Your story may end up looking different than you hoped or imagined, but a lot of the time that ends up being a great thing.
