…continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. (Colossians 1:23, NIV)
There’s something about the change of seasons and the coming of shorter days. It seems there is so much more time to sit around, especially during those long evenings. I live in a warm region where we can play golf most every day of the year, but I can certainly understand how a golfer’s game can fall out of shape when there are few fair days available.
Of course, not everything has to fall apart. You can put a putting mat in your basement and keep up your stroke. You can go to the gym, or simply work out in front of the TV, adding strength and maintaining flexibility. You might even watch videos of those who swing it well, thus allowing their rhythm and timing to plant themselves in your muscle-triggering brain for when you return to the course. But all that requires resolve.
As I have been thinking about the discipline I need to have in place as we approach the holidays and the winter months, I have been reading as well in the Gospels and in Paul’s epistles. And here’s what I have come to recognize: Jesus never took a day off from his calling.
He was Jewish, of course, committed to the rest of the Sabbath. He slowed down and took time for people when others would not. He gave stretches of time to prayer. So we wouldn’t say that Jesus didn’t know how to jump off the hamster wheel. He most certainly did. But he never lost sight of the purpose God had given him. His was a resolved life.
Jesus was always going to the cross. Along the way, he taught and healed and cast out demons. He conversed with the Father and confronted the religious elite. Like you and me, he was met with undesirable challenges, but he also experienced joyful interruptions, in the homes of Mary and Martha and of Zacchaeus, for instance. Plenty of chances to set aside that target. But Jesus held fast.
My own vision is not like this. I lose track of the essentials. Likely you do, too. Which is all the more reason we must not lose sight of Jesus. In him, we gain the only righteousness that counts.
We waver. Christ stands. Our one great hope is to cling to him until our wavering stops. It may only come at the end of this life, but at least when we get there we can say we’ve arrived in the presence of the only one who can walk us through the door.
—
Jeff Hopper
October 27, 2014
Copyright 2014 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.