All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17, NIV)
Every golfer who intends to become a competitive player must learn the Rules of Golf in order to avoid making a mistake that will result in a penalty. Golfers learn the rules by reading them and then attempting to abide by them while playing. Their playing partners and rules officials can also be resources to help prevent them from making a mistake.
God’s order for our life is different than what we would choose on our own.For a Christian, the scriptures work in much the same way to help us stay out of trouble. Reading and studying the Bible helps us to know how to live our life. It provides direct answers to many issues that all of us will encounter as we live out our existence. It is not by accident that we all know that there are certain things that are wrong. We are born with an innate sense of fairness and know when we are harmed by another person. This is part of God’s overarching moral law. We know what is right, but we don’t always do what we know is right.
We find God’s explanation about how to live as a human being in the Bible. It does not pull any punches. It clearly points out that we are sinful and fully capable of the most despicable behavior we could imagine. At the same time, it gives us the remedy for our own evil behavior. In golf we would have to take a penalty for a breach of the rules. In life we are offered a reprieve for our bad behavior. Someone else takes the penalty for us. Jesus died for our bad behavior, so we wouldn’t have to. We have to accept this lifeline and believe in him to receive it.
When we receive this offer of redemption, we are changed into people who can do right and will become the kind of people that can and want to obey God’s rule with his help. He does not expect us to be perfect before he takes our penalty but wants us to become perfect after he saves us. We still have to study the rules and sometimes he corrects our misunderstandings, but we will not be penalized as we should be.
As our scripture for today points out, God’s rule book, as it were, is there for our own good. It points us to the correct choices about how to live our life and shows us just what pleases God. God’s order for our life is different than what we would choose on our own. We can muddle through our life incurring lots of penalties, or we can study what the Book says and avoid a lot of unnecessary difficulties. Most of all, we can trust that even if we incur a penalty, Jesus has already paid the price for our redemption.
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Linda Ballard
June 7, 2018
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The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.