Does Sports Imitate Life or Does....

People say that life imitates art.  That's why some are concerned when the latest slasher, or hacker or whatever kind of murder movie comes out.  I was wondering last night as I sat an watched the first half of the Patriots/Chargers game whether sports imitates life, or vice versa.  After all, cheating is part of our world, and it's certainly part of sports.  Which came first--cheating in sports, or cheating in life?  I wasn't there, but my guess is that cheating in life came first.  At some point in the distant past, somebody found out that they could get an advantage, or avoid a disadvantage by cheating, so they did it. When sports came along, sports IMITATED life.  Now, wherever we look sports teams and players are cheating in order to --- gain an advantage or avoid a disadvantage.  To what end?  To WIN. 

I've always been a fan of winning myself, whether we're talking about a sports contest, or a board game, or the "game" of life.  But at what cost?  Jesus told us that it was the TRUTH that would set us free, not lies, not cheating, not taking advantage of the "system" whatever the system might be.  But it's hard to believe that a person can live with that philosophy in our day--TRUTH first, truth last, truth in the middle?  Could a person possibly WIN under those constraints?  YES! After all, Jesus asked a question that puts it all in perspective, "What does it profit a man (or woman) to gain the WHOLE WORLD, and lose his (or her) soul?"  When you put it that way----and we MUST put it that way if we call ourselves followers of Jesus--cheating doesn't sound like such an advantage.  It comes back to this:  Who's first in life?  Is it Jesus, and winning the world to Him, or is it something else?  When Jesus comes first then we know that sports will imitate LIFE, because LIFE will set the agenda---that's our "game" today, and as we live it in the power of the Holy Spirit we ALWAYS end up as the WINNERS!