by Shannon Caughey

The start of a new year brings with it the sense of fresh opportunities. We make new resolutions about what we’ll do or perhaps about how we’ll coach in the coming year. We have new hope regarding what will be different and better this year than it was during the previous year. We might choose a new word that we want to define the year ahead.

With the new year, I invite you to consider another opportunity: focus on being a “new” coach. What does this mean? In his letter to the Colossians, the Apostle Paul addresses several dimensions of the “newness” that characterizes followers of Jesus. In this and the next few devotions, we’ll look at these passages and consider how being “new” impacts the way we coach and live.

In Colossians 2:12-13, Paul writes, “And with [Christ] you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead. You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins.”

Before coming to Christ, we were not in pretty good shape with just a little help needed from him. We were “dead because of [our] sins.” Though physically alive, we were spiritually dead because we rebelled against the Holy God. We were facing an eternity of being separated from this God who loves us and created us to be in relationship with him. We “lived in this world without God and without hope” (Ephesians 2:12).

But God came to us in his Son, Jesus Christ. When we respond to Christ with faith—trusting what Jesus accomplished for us through his sinless life, sacrificial death for our sins, and resurrection victory over sin and death—we are “raised to new life.” We are no longer spiritually dead. Our sins are forgiven and the same power that raised Christ from the dead has raised us to new, eternal life. In John 5:24, Jesus declares, “I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life.”

This isn’t just any “life.” We have Christ’s life in us through our faith union with him. As Paul puts it in Galatians 2:20, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” Consider this incredible truth: if you’ve put your faith in Jesus Christ, he now lives in you by his Spirit. The new life you have is Jesus’ life: his presence, his love, his power, his grace, his wisdom, etc.

To be a “new coach,” then, means recognizing, embracing, and living out of the life of Christ that is yours in every situation. As you coach your athletes, you pray for Christ’s life to flow through your every word and action. When you face adversity in coaching situations, you trust Christ’s life to saturate your attitude and your response. Whether you experience success or failure as a coach, you genuinely want Christ to be exalted in you. Moment by moment, your greatest desire is that those you influence would encounter Christ through your life.

No matter how many years you’ve been coaching, this year you can focus on being a “new” coach: a coach who depends upon and is defined by the new life you have in Christ. Hold fast to what is true: through faith in Christ, you were raised to new life. It is no longer you who live, but Christ lives in you.

For reflection: Thank God for the new life you have in Christ. Ask him to help you live and coach more fully out of the life of Christ in you.