And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. (Romans 12:1, NLT)
Golfers aren’t different than other learners. Some just want to know how to hold the club, how to take their stance, and how to swing the club back and through so the ball goes mostly where they want it to go. Others yearn to know how it all works—which part of the swing produces what kind of shot. This second group were probably those who grew up plaguing their parents with that most open-ended question: Why?
The answers to why are undoubtedly critical in a lot of endeavors. When we complain to our technician about his $100 charge to fix a problem in five minutes, he tells us, “You don’t pay me to push the button. You pay me for knowing which button to push.” Problem solving is about why. And when we as leaders teach our employees or volunteers the why behind the what, we give them the gift of expertise.
Why may also be the most powerful question in regards to our faith. While we sometimes need to simply fall back on the old hymn’s directive to “trust and obey,” knowing why we believe and why God calls us to certain forms of righteousness can make a real difference.
We gain much spiritual ground when we look for the whys behind the actions of our faith.In the fullness of understanding, whys can come in layers. Why, for instance, do we follow God’s directives on sexual purity? At one level, it is because he is God and he said so. At the next level, it is because sexual purity can keep us from all kinds of consequences—physical, emotional, relational, spiritual. Higher still, as we see in today’s scripture, we obey because we want to honor in our bodies the one who has saved us. We cannot break up these layers, for they have interwoven value. But when we understand the whys contained in each of them, we become all the more driven to follow the Lord.
As those being discipled and those discipling others (we should always be both), we gain much spiritual ground when we look for the whys behind the actions of our faith. Knowing the whys gives us a fortified defense “against the devil’s schemes” (Ephesians 6:11). He’ll try to convince us that God’s reasons are flimsy, but we can respond that they are wholly secure. Then we can get back to the business of living for Jesus, because of all he has done for us.
—
Jeff Hopper
August 23, 2019
Copyright 2019 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.
OTHER DEVOTIONS IN THIS SERIES
On Location 1: Gathering Together
On Location 2: Then and Now
On Location 3: New Ventures
On Location 4: Partners in Ministry
On Location 5: Making Connections
On Location 6: The Round Ahead
On Location 7: Helping Others
On Location 8: Stepping Out
On Location 9: Lifelong Learning
On Location 10: Tough Stuff
On Location 11: Learning Together