Lou Holtz made a career out of rebuilding college football teams. He wasn’t known so much for complicated offensive or defensive schemes. Instead, he maximized his players’ talents by motivating them to play hard no matter the circumstances. He is the only college football coach to lead six different programs to bowl games and the only coach to guide four different programs to the final top 20 rankings.

While coaching at the University of North Carolina State, Holtz used one of his most talented players as a running back and a wide receiver, punt returner and kick returner. Wherever he coached, he motivated his team to play their best. “I won’t accept anything less than the best a player’s capable of doing—he has the right to expect the best I can do for him and the team!” He summed up his coaching philosophy with these words, “Your talent determines what you can do. Your motivation determines how much you are willing to do. Your attitude determines how well you do it”

Ephesians 2 – Heavenly Places

While we might be amazed at the work Coach Holtz accomplished during his career, nothing compares with God’s amazing work in our lives. In chapter 2 Paul reminded the Ephesians of the amazing depths and heights they had been taken to be seated in the heavenly places with Christ (2:1-7). Next is the amazing work: For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

Paul used this great statement to show them 1) God’s role in salvation and 2) man’s responsibility to God. We need to ask ourselves what it means to be God’s “workmanship” and what it requires of us.

The Kingdom Coach and Athlete believe they are God’s amazing “workmanship.” Kent Hughes adds this idea in his commentary on how we need to hold still as God works in our lives. “Our tendency is to be like a two-year-old in the barber’s chair—squirming so much that we really never get the care we need. We must submit to the authority of His Word and the shaping influences he brings to our lives!”

Bible Memory Verse – But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, [and] self-control. Galatians 5:22-23a (LSB)