“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.
“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! … Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near.” — Isaiah 55:1a, 6
The word “offer” to a high school basketball player is a huge deal when they are considering opportunities to continue to play in college. These days, college basketball scholarship offers are few and far between for high school seniors because of the newly formed transfer portal, and even the impact of NIL money available to current college players.
Interestingly enough, God makes us an offer too. However, there are some major differences between the offers of the world and the offer of God. This does not necessarily mean offers from the world are inherently bad. Athletes, employers and people from all walks of life consider and evaluate offers all the time as a part of their daily lives, as they work hard to improve themselves and provide for their families.
However, consider for a moment a college basketball scholarship offer. The player has had to work hard to earn an offer and catch the attention of a coach. Once secured, a scholarship is usually transactional in nature. If the player performs well, they keep their roster spot. If the player’s performance dwindles, the player can lose their roster spot. In other words, the world’s offer is often temporary and usually financially driven in some way or another.
The world’s offer is often self-promoting as well. Again, there is certainly nothing wrong with receiving an offer. It is a great day! But social media posts are still often about the player’s accomplishment.
Finally, a scholarship offer or job offer for one person usually means someone else did not get the offer. Typically, there are only a limited number of players or people receiving offers. For example, a basketball team traditionally carries a 12-player roster.
Now, contrast an athletic scholarship offer with the offer of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The offer of the Gospel is free, although Jesus paid an enormous price — dying on the cross for our sins — to make the offer possible. And we cannot work to receive this gracious offer of salvation. The offer is free also in the sense that it is not financially driven; there is no money involved or exchanged.
Once accepted, the Gospel offer moves from a gracious free offer to a transformational position before God. God’s offer of spiritual life changes the recipient over time as they grow more and more into the image of Jesus Christ.
The Lord’s offer is also unconditional. In other words, it is not performance-related. It is for eternity. It is an offer that can never be lost. When one shares about or posts the Good News of God’s free offer, it lifts up God and others rather than promoting self.
Finally, the offer of the Gospel is for everyone. God’s team has an unlimited number of roster spots!
As incredibly exciting as a college scholarship offer can be, or the offer of a new contract at a job, they all pale in comparison to the free offer of the Gospel found in Jesus Christ. It is no wonder the prophet Isaiah called everyone to come and “seek the Lord while He may be found” (Isaiah 55:6, above).
Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Drew Rasmussen, Oct. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
It’s fitting that pitcher Drew Rasmussen will start at some point for the Tampa Bay Rays in the World Series against the Milwaukee Brewers. After the season and postseason he’s had, he’s become Tampa’s ace. But for him, the reasons for why this is so meaningful go far deeper than just baseball.
He credits his strong faith in God for enduring the arduous, injury-riddled, somewhat roundabout journey between both organizations.
The Rays drafted him in the first round of the 2017 MLB Draft out of Oregon State, but he failed his physical and never signed. He suffered an elbow injury in 2016 that required Tommy John surgery, but returned in 2017 to pitch in eight games and make four starts.
That was enough to convince the Rays to select him, but a subsequent physical revealed that his elbow wasn’t quite fully healthy. Instead of starting his pro career, he needed another Tommy John surgery, which he underwent in September 2017. He missed the entire 2018 season while rehabbing and didn’t have a chance to pitch again to help his draft stock.
“I would say 2017 was when it really hit me that everything the world promises to you is temporary. It’s fleeting,” Rasmussen said recently in a video with Travel Chapel. “There’s no long-term joy. When you lean on the things of this earth, you’re just going to find empty promises. They might bring you momentary happiness, but it’s not everlasting joy.”
He was crushed when he had to go back to school, but the next two years allowed him to mature in his faith.
Even though he grew up going to church and youth group every week, he wouldn’t have considered himself a “man of faith” or someone “searching after God” when he arrived at Oregon State. One of the campus leaders for Fellowship of Christian Athletes started pouring into Rasmussen regularly during his freshman year, inviting him to his house and other events, but Rasmussen said he doesn’t remember taking him up on an offer even one time.
But during his sophomore year, Rasmussen got more curious about God and started digging into the Bible at the “ground level.” Then the first injury came.
“I do think God does a lot of His best work in your life when things are going poorly,” Rasmussen told Travel Chapel.
That injury and the second elbow surgery, along with the disappointment about not being able to make the jump to the pros, is what led him to dive even deeper into his faith.
Despite the injury and time away from the mound, the Brewers drafted Rasmussen in the sixth round of the 2018 draft. He returned to the mound and spent all of 2019 in the minor leagues. He then made his MLB debut in August 2020 during the COVID-shortened season, appearing in 12 games and posting a 5.87 ERA with 21 strikeouts across 15.1 innings pitched.
He started the 2021 season in the bullpen, but the Brewers traded him to the Rays in May 2021. It was disorienting for both him and his wife, Stevie, whom he married in 2020. The Brewers were all they knew in pro ball, and they loved the people in the organization.
“It’s funny looking back on things. What can seem so hard in a moment, God is actually using for something significantly better,” Rasmussen said.
He’s since found a home with the Rays. He’s been selected to the American League All-Star team the last two seasons, and this year he’s been Tampa Bay’s ace all year long. He led the team with 16 wins and 174 strikeouts in the regular season — both career highs — and posted a 2.67 ERA. In the postseason, he leads the team with 21.0 innings pitched and 23 strikeouts to go with two wins and a 1.29 ERA. He won’t pitch Game 1, but will be plenty rested for Game 2 or 3.
But baseball aside, he’s also felt at home in the clubhouse and has connected deeply with team chaplains and his teammates.
“The guys in the clubhouse were exactly what I needed, and God knew He had to put me in the Tampa Bay organization to be surrounded by guys like Ryan Thompson, Jalen Beeks, the year later Jason Adam,” Rasmussen told Travel Chapel. “These are all great men of faith and people I aspire to be like. Although they’re teammates, they’re friends. They’re further on in their walk than I am, so He’s put me in a place where I’ve had great role models and people that are living out their faith on a daily basis.
“He took something my wife and I thought was so negative and He’s turned it into the biggest blessing and the biggest positive in our lives.”
Rasmussen pitched well in 2022 and was off to a good start in 2023 until an elbow injury required him to undergo an internal brace procedure, which ended his season after just eight starts. Before that, he could tell he was starting to “drift” spiritually. The forced slowdown of recovering from surgery allowed him and Stevie to grow even stronger in their faith.
“I think God truly used that time to just say, ‘Hey, look, I’m always here,'” Rasmussen said. “I’m not perfect. I’m nowhere near it. Thank God, because He’s accepting, and the gift of salvation is something I don’t deserve. As I started to drift, I think He put some guardrails in my life, and I think He’s done it two or three other times.”
Stevie even got baptized while he was rehabbing.
“Seeing her evolve is also one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Being here in Tampa has been unbelievable. And just the people we’ve been surrounded by here, it truly has been amazing. It’s been a blessing. Compared to the miracles of the Bible, I don’t know if you could call it that, but it’s a miracle for Stevie and I.”
Rasmussen and the Rays are on the road to start the World Series. Game 1 is set for 8 p.m. ET Friday on Fox.
In sports, you are given instructions on how to play the game and what your role is as part of a team. Sometimes, when you don’t follow the instructions given by your coach, things can go wrong. Things can change so quickly that it can make you lose a game.
The same thing can happen when we’re listening to God. We hear what He says, but somehow we end up questioning Him, adding something or just not listening to His instructions fully.
Like Eve in the Garden of Eden, when the serpent asked her if God really said they weren’t to eat from any tree in the garden. She said they could eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but not from the tree in the middle of the garden. Then she changed God’s original boundary (forbidding them from eating from the tree) by saying they couldn’t even touch it or they’d die.
Or when the assembly was arguing with Moses about there being no water. God told Moses to take his staff and gather the assembly together, speak to a rock and it will pour out its water. But in his anger, Moses took the staff, raised his arm and struck the rock twice. Water gushed out and everyone drank. But the Lord told Moses and Aaron that since they did not trust Him, they would not be the ones to bring this community into the Promised Land. They had dishonored the Lord in the sight of His people.
We as humans sometimes deviate from the rules or change them to fit our desires. Sometimes we get away with it. But if we deviate from God and His Word or try to change His instructions in our favor or do it out of anger, we can be sure we’ll be corrected.
God will discipline us for our good. It may not be pleasant, but He wants us to share in His holiness (Hebrews 12:9-11). Trust and obey — they go hand in hand.
Ohio State football players (L-R) T.J. Alford, Luke Montgomery and Epi Sitanilei at the "Fall Kickoff" event, Oct. 19, 2026. (Photo by Lucas Cochran/@lucascochranmedia)
Fresh off of Saturday’s win over defending national champion Indiana, members of the Ohio State football team were back on campus Monday to spread the Gospel and participate in what has become an annual campus-wide worship night. “Fall Kickoff: an Invitation to Jesus” is now in its third year hosted by Ohio State players, and included worship, athletes sharing their testimonies, and ended with a mass baptism.
Nearly 1,000 people were in attendance and 35 baptisms took place, according to Mairin O’Brien, a former OSU swimmer who helped organize this year’s event.
Current football players Beau Atkinson, T.J. Alford, Epi Sitanilei and Carson Hinzman were four of the six student-athletes who shared their testimonies, as field hockey player Katie Fichtner and dance team member Chloe Cerreto also spoke. Numerous athletes wore “Jesus Won” T-shirts.
Former football players Gee Scott Jr., Master Teague and Kamryn Babb also spoke and have been leaders in keeping the event going since helping plan the inaugural event in 2024. That night drew nearly 2,000 people, and since then each subsequent event has brought a spotlight on Jesus around campus and the sports world at large.
Other former players like wide receiver Emeka Egbuka, running back TreVeyon Henderson, defensive back Caleb Downs and linebacker Sonny Styles have participated in previous years, but currently are busy with their respective NFL teams.
“Just for two hours, three hours, however [long] we’re here for, just put [all stressors] to the side,” Babb said, according to The Lantern, Ohio State’s independent student newspaper. “And I promise you, He wants to meet you. So if you just give Him your heart, you’ll be so surprised on what He can do.”
Hinzman, a fifth-year center, shared his testimony of growing up in rural western Wisconsin, where he regularly attended church with his family but couldn’t quite discern God’s meaning for his life. He didn’t play a snap as a freshman and started to contemplate if he should transfer elsewhere.
His father encouraged him to pray about it.
“I just cried and praised the Lord,” Hinzman told the crowd. “[I thought,] ‘I don’t know what to do anymore, I have no other way to go. I feel like I’m just an embarrassment. I feel like I can’t do this right.'”
Looking back, he can see how he was putting a lot of unnecessary pressure on himself thinking about people back home who he wanted to “do good for.”
“I felt that my validation came through what I did in my sport,” he said.
He eventually went on to earn a starting role and help lead the Buckeyes to the 2024-25 national championship, and he now has a more mature and tested faith to share with others. One student told The Lantern that it was the faith of the Ohio State football players that led her to attend school there.
Ohio State’s 2024 event sparked a wave of similar events on college campuses across the country. Last month, nearly 400 people showed up to an athlete-led worship event at the University of Toledo, where 50 people were baptized. Last year at the University of Pittsburgh, athletes hosted an event called “Pitt for Jesus” that featured baptisms, live worship music, prayer and athlete testimonies. They hosted another event this year.
Current NFL stars like C.J. Stroud and Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who regularly proclaim their faith in Christ, were eternally impacted while at Ohio State. That was largely because of teammates like Babb, Scott and Teague, who continue to pour into the athletes in Columbus, Ohio.
“Over the last couple years we’ve really seen the Lord start a revival on our team,” Egbuka said in 2024. That revival continues.
On the football field, Ohio State is 5-1 and ranked No. 3 in the most recent AP top-25 poll after beating Indiana. The Buckeyes have a bye this week and will play again Oct. 31 on the road against USC.
