“Everything is permissible for me”—but not everything is beneficial. (1 Corinthians 6:12, NIV)
Every golfer knows that sometimes the risk dashes the hopes of reward.
Standing there, 200 yards or more from a tantalizing green, we see the trouble, yes—but more than that, we see in our mind’s eye, just as every good sports psychologist teaches us, a beautiful picture of the shot we are about to hit.
And then we paint with our kindergarten fingers. The shot goes low and left or high and right and five minutes later, we walk off with double or triple, the sounds of that chirping birdie reduced to a death croak. Good gracious!
In recent weeks, I have spoken in three different venues and written about a theme that God has dropped into my life like so many rays of sunshine: freedom. I have been a champion for Christ-granted freedom in these weeks in ways that I have never been before. And I am sure that I have been right in doing so.
But oh, how the law wants to rear its ugly head! Oh, how sin wants to torture me again!
Twice this week, I have seen and felt the grave consequences of a life lived in “freedom”—a life lived, as Eugene Peterson puts it in his paraphrase of today’s passage, with a person going “around doing whatever [they] thought [they] could get away with.” It makes me want to defend the right: “How could you not see that this was sin? How could you think you would get away with this without doing damage to yourself and to others? How could you, how could you, how could you?” That’s right, I went down that ranting path.
With full admission, I have taken the same course myself so many times. I have chosen the path of most resistance and pretended that it was a garden stroll. And I have paid the price in my spirit, in my body, in my relationships. But, like Paul, I so want to resist that painful course, and I want others to resist it as well. So I point to the law and I say, “Don’t you see how plain this is, how simple?”
Sure, all my pointing trumpets the benefits of righteousness according to God’s best design. Which is good. “All is permissible. Not all is beneficial.” We need to recognize that sin, like that wayward shot on a penal golf hole, has harsh consequences. We need to be told that “he who guards his soul stays far from thorns and snares” (Proverbs 22:5). We need to be warned.
Yet what we need most are not reminders of God’s law but of God’s love. We need to be told that in spite of our poorly executed freedom, in spite of our sin, in spite of the pain rained upon us by the sins of others, in spite of our stubborn human penchant for choosing the things that harm us rather than the things that bring life—in spite of all this, God is waiting. He is waiting to forgive. He is waiting to renew. He is waiting to show you again why his way is best. Won’t you come?
—
Jeff Hopper
July 11, 2013
Copyright 2013 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.