Sports, Idolatry, and Learning to Hear God's Voice

I was driving down the freeway, getting off at Turner-Warnell, when fear gripped my heart. Some of the men in our church had started going to Rangers games, and I was terrified they were falling in love with the world.

You see, I was raised in a very strict religious environment where we couldn't do professional sports. We could play in the backyard, but organized sports were considered idolatry. The reasoning was that when you go to those big games and you're out there shouting for your team, you're sharing the same spirit, becoming one with the world, getting caught up in worldly passions.

As I was driving that day, wrestling with these fears, I cried out to the Lord: "God, but sports is idolatry!"

And I heard Him say as clear as anything: "Yes, if you make it."

Immediately, the understanding flooded my mind: And so is money, and so is sex, and so is fashion, and so is business, and so is religion.

In that moment, He delivered me from fear and helped me understand something fundamental about how He sees the world—and how He wants us to navigate it.

The Heart Behind Everything

What God showed me that day was revolutionary: it's not the activity itself that makes something idolatrous. It's what you make it. It's the heart behind it.

Money isn't evil—the love of money is (1 Timothy 6:10, NKJV). Sex isn't wrong—it's beautiful within God's design. Fashion, business, entertainment, even religion—none of these things are inherently good or evil. They become what we make them.

Sports can be idolatry if you worship your team, if your emotional well-being depends on their success, if you're willing to sacrifice your family or your character for the sake of a game. But sports can also be a beautiful expression of human creativity, teamwork, and physical excellence that brings people joy and builds community.

The same activity can be life-giving or destructive, depending on the heart behind it.

Moving Beyond Rule-Following

This revelation began to free me from the fear-based rule-following that had dominated my spiritual life. I'd been taught to navigate life by consulting a mental checklist: Is this allowed? Is this forbidden? What does the rule book say?

But God was showing me a different way—a way that required relationship with Him rather than mere rule-following.

Instead of asking "Is this activity on the approved list?" I learned to ask "What is my heart toward this? Am I approaching this from love or from lust? From freedom or from compulsion? From gratitude or from greed?"

This shift changed everything.

The Problem with Biblical Bibliography

The religious world I'd been raised in suffered from what I call "bibliography"—the worship of the Bible rather than worship of the God the Bible points to. We'd turned Scripture into an owner's manual, a rule book we could consult to find the right answer for every situation.

Want to know what to do when your marriage is struggling? Look up Matthew 5, Matthew 19, 1 Corinthians 7, Romans 7. Find the rules and follow them.

Want to know if you can go to a sports game? Search for every mention of entertainment, worldliness, and cultural engagement. Make a list of do's and don'ts.

But that's not what the Bible was meant to be. Scripture was given to introduce us to a living God who still speaks, not to replace relationship with Him.

How Paul Navigated Gray Areas

What's fascinating is that Paul himself shows us how to handle situations that aren't specifically addressed in Scripture. In 1 Corinthians 7, when dealing with marriage issues among the Corinthians, he says something remarkable:

"To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord)..." (1 Corinthians 7:10, NIV). Then later: "To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord)..." (1 Corinthians 7:12, NIV).

Paul distinguishes between what Jesus specifically taught and what he himself was working out through wisdom and relationship with Holy Spirit. He's essentially saying, "The Lord didn't specifically address this situation, but I think I've got it right. I think I'm saying what the Lord would have me say here."

That gives us a biblical pattern for how we should operate when facing decisions that aren't specifically spelled out in Scripture.

The Timothy and Titus Paradox

If you want to see how this works in practice, look at Paul's apparently contradictory decisions about circumcision. In Galatians, he teaches powerfully against circumcision, saying that if you rely on circumcision, you've "fallen away from grace" (Galatians 5:4, NIV).

Yet when he's about to take Timothy on a missionary journey, he circumcises him "because of the Jews who lived in that area" (Acts 16:3, NIV). But when Titus faces pressure to be circumcised, Paul refuses to allow it (Galatians 2:3-5).

How do we reconcile this? Was Paul being inconsistent? Hypocritical?

No. Paul was being led by Holy Spirit in each unique situation. With Timothy, circumcision served a strategic purpose that would advance the Gospel. With Titus, it would have compromised the Gospel message of freedom.

Paul understood that the principle mattered more than the rule. The principle was freedom from legalism and the advancement of God's Kingdom. Sometimes that meant going along with cultural expectations; sometimes it meant boldly challenging them.

Following Your Conscience in Partnership with God

This is what Romans 14 is all about. Paul addresses believers who disagreed about eating meat sacrificed to idols and observing special days. His solution isn't to give them a rule that settles the matter once and for all. Instead, he essentially says:

"The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God" (Romans 14:6, ESV).

Follow your conscience. If you can eat meat, eat it in the name of Jesus. If you cannot eat meat, abstain in the name of Jesus. And don't judge each other, because both of you have to be led by Holy Spirit as God works in your individual situations.

That was revolutionary for me because it showed there wasn't always a hard and fast rule. Sometimes we have to walk in the Spirit, follow our conscience, and trust God to guide us through the process—even when that process looks different for different people.

Living Between Law and Grace

When God began showing me these truths, I found myself in a difficult position. I was still part of a community where many of these strict rules were required, but I no longer believed they were necessary. How do you live with integrity when you don't believe what you're expected to practice?

God showed me through Paul's example that sometimes you have to navigate transitions gracefully. Paul, who taught against circumcision and law-keeping, still sometimes went along with these practices when wisdom required it.

When Paul returned to Jerusalem, James asked him to demonstrate to the people that he still "walked according to the law" by joining some men in temple sacrifices (Acts 21:23-24). Paul agreed, even though he'd been teaching that such practices weren't necessary for salvation.

How could Paul do this without being hypocritical? Because he understood that love sometimes requires flexibility. As he wrote, "I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some" (1 Corinthians 9:22, ESV).

Sometimes you go along with things you don't personally believe because you're in a season of transition, because love requires it, because wisdom demands patience.

The Freedom of Hearing God's Voice

Learning to hear God's voice in real time, rather than just consulting a rule book, initially felt dangerous. What if I got it wrong? What if I was just hearing what I wanted to hear? What if I was being deceived?

But what I discovered was that God's voice has certain characteristics that you can learn to recognize:

It aligns with His character. God never tells you to do something that contradicts His nature of love, truth, and righteousness.

It produces peace. Even when God asks you to do difficult things, there's an underlying peace that comes with His guidance.

It bears good fruit. Over time, following God's voice leads to greater freedom, healthier relationships, and spiritual growth.

It drives you to Scripture, not away from it. When God speaks, it makes you want to know Him more through His Word, not less.

What I learned was that the fear of "getting it wrong" was actually keeping me from the very relationship God desired with me. He's not a harsh taskmaster waiting to punish us for misunderstanding His voice. He's a loving Father who wants ongoing relationship with His children.

Practicing His Presence

One of the most transformative things I learned was to practice God's presence throughout the day rather than relegating communication with Him to formal prayer times.

If God really lives in me, if He's closer than my skin, if He's omnipresent and loves me, then He's available for constant fellowship. The question isn't whether He's speaking—it's whether I'm bothering to listen.

I learned to notice when thoughts came that I wasn't already thinking about. When someone's face would pop into my mind unexpectedly, I'd ask, "Is that You, Lord?" and then act on the prompting—call them, pray for them, send an encouraging text.

When I faced decisions, I learned to ask His opinion and then pay attention to the peace or lack of peace in my spirit. When I needed wisdom, I learned to expect that He would give it, often through Scripture that would suddenly come alive, through wise counsel from others, or through that inner knowing that comes from His Spirit.

This isn't mystical or spooky—it's the normal Christian life that Jesus promised when He said His sheep would hear His voice (John 10:27, NKJV).

The Danger of Mixing Law with Grace

One thing I've learned is that you can't mix law with grace and have it work. You can't add restrictions and rules to freedom and still have freedom. Like mixing water with gasoline, it eventually stops the engine.

When it comes to marriage, for example, you can't mix legalistic rules about submission with the freedom Christ offers and expect healthy relationships. You can't mix fear-based rule-following with love and expect the love to flourish.

Paul used the example of Hagar and Sarah to illustrate this. Hagar represented the covenant of slavery—doing things because you have to, performing for acceptance, operating under obligation. Sarah represented the covenant of promise—doing things because you choose to, operating from sonship, living in freedom.

Paul said to "cast out the slave woman and her child, for the child of the slave woman shall not inherit with the child of the free woman" (Galatians 4:30, ESV). You can't mix the two systems and expect them to coexist.

An Invitation to Freedom

If you've been living by a checklist of do's and don'ts, afraid to step outside the lines of religious rules, I want to invite you into something better. God wants relationship with you, not just rule-following from you.

That doesn't mean anything goes or that Scripture doesn't matter. It means that Scripture was given to point you to a living God who still speaks, still guides, and still wants intimate fellowship with you.

Start small. Ask God what He thinks about the decisions you're facing. Pay attention to His peace or lack of peace in your spirit. Notice when thoughts come that seem to come from outside your own thinking. Learn to recognize His voice in the midst of your ordinary day.

You might be surprised to discover that God has been speaking all along—you just didn't know how to listen.

And when you do learn to hear His voice, you'll discover something beautiful: His yoke really is easy, and His burden really is light (Matthew 11:30, NKJV). Walking in relationship with Him is so much better than trying to follow rules perfectly.

It's the difference between dance and drill. It's the difference between love and law. It's the difference between freedom and bondage.

And it's available to anyone willing to trust that God really does want to speak to His children—even about things as ordinary as whether to go to a ball game.

Blessings,
Susan 😊