Lance Armstrong
	Is there anyone who hasn’t grown tired of hearing the name Lance Armstrong on TV, Radio, internet, and everywhere else. He’s the bicyclist fellow who won the Tour de France numerous times and for 13 years denied that he had used performance enhancing drugs or otherwise cheated in order to win. In a recent interview with Oprah Winfrey, he finally admitted that he had lied all that time. He now says he did, indeed, use banned substances such as EPO (which stimulates the body to produce more red blood cells) and testosterone (a male hormone), and that he used blood transfusions, which we presume would increase his blood volume and thus improve his performance in the races.
	I don’t want this to be a “beat up Lance Armstrong” session. What he did was wrong, and he has acknowledged that. What I want us to see is how he rationalized his behavior at the time he was doing it, and how we can get caught up in the same sort of thing if we aren’t careful.
	In a nut shell, nothing was more important than winning. There is nothing wrong with wanting to win. I doubt that very many athletes participate in a sport with a goal of losing. But in this case winning was so important that Lance Armstrong used the old argument that the end justifies the means – that is, that winning was so important that it was ok to break the rules. When Oprah asked him if he felt embarrassed or ashamed when he cheated, Armstrong dodged the question and talked about how he knew he was going to win. Justifying sin by pointing to a desirable result has gotten innumerable people into trouble. King Saul claimed that he kept the livestock of the Amalekites alive so he could sacrifice them to God. Samuel told him that to obey was better than sacrifice. Some Christians & churches today are watering down the gospel while pointing to higher attendance and contribution numbers that come as a result. Paul’s enemies falsely accused him of teaching “let us do evil that good may come” (Romans 3:8).
	When Oprah asked Lance Armstrong if he felt like it was a big deal, or like it was wrong, when he was taking the illegal drugs, he answered “no” and admitted that his lack of guilt feeling was scary. She pressed the issue with two more questions: did he even feel it was wrong, and did he ever feel bad about it. Both answers: NO. Scripture warns us about having the conscience seared as with a hot iron (1 Timothy 4:2). God gave us a conscience to make us feel bad when we do that which we know is wrong. But we can harden our hearts to the point that it is as though the conscience has a hard layer of scar tissue on it, so that it can’t feel the stab of guilt.
	The last thing I want to point out is that when Oprah asked, “Did you feel in any way that you were cheating?”, Armstrong replied that he had gone to the dictionary and looked up the word “cheat.” He found a definition that said “to gain advantage on a rival that they don’t have.” Since he knew that so many others were doing the same things he was doing, he rationalized that he was not gaining an unfair advantage, but just leveling the playing field. If we look hard enough & long enough, we can find a way to excuse sin. A former president of the United States tried to get past his wrongdoing by saying “that depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is.” And, we can always use the childish rationalization Armstrong used, that everybody else is doing it, so it’s ok for me to do it too.
	As stated before, I do not intend for this to be a “beat up Lance Armstrong” session. I want us to see the ways he rationalized and excused his behavior while he was committing it. Whether you think he is really sorry or that he has done enough to make amends is beside the point. That’s between him and the people he hurt. Our concern is not to be his judge, but to look in the mirror and be certain we are not falling into the same trap he did.
	--Joe Slater (Justin, TX)