“For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed.” (Acts 17:31, NIV)
It’s Day 2. If you follow professional golf regularly, you know that normally after the second day of competition in a 72-hole tournament, a cut is made. Often, more than half the field slam their trunk and head home. Those who miss the cut aren’t allowed to play the weekend, when the winnings are passed out.
Today this harsh Day 2 happens for the amateurs, too. Of the roughly 310 men who started the US Amateur at Oakmont Country Club yesterday, only 64 will remain to enter match play. That’s a deep cut, eliminating almost 80% of the competitors.
Now comes the real news. A cut awaits every one of us. Its importance is of far greater value than even the most storied, most eminent golf tournament. Its result will determine the course of your eternal life. And yet you rarely consider this cut. Your days of family time and work and leisure slip past with not so much as a glance at the scoreboard. It’s just not one of those things that finds its way to the forefront of your mind. But it almost certainly should.
This cut to which I’m referring, of course, is the one that says, “You get to play the eternal weekend.” Or you don’t. It is the judgment of God over the span of your life.
The day of God’s judgment is one of those matters that cannot be fully captured by latching onto a verse here or there. We need the whole counsel of Scripture to understand it. So let me offer an overview.
When it comes to the cut of God’s judgment, we must cry out first, ahead of the cut.
Our sinful life puts us in more than a precarious position before God. Indeed, it disqualifies us. We would not be wrong to say to ourselves, “You’ll never make the cut.” On our own merit, we’re slamming the trunk (see Romans 3:9-18).
But still we must be judged. We must hear the voice of God our Judge saying, “Throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 25:30).
Or must we? That same parable features those who were rewarded. There must be a way to make this cut. And there is: “When the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy” (Titus 3:4-5). When we are cut in our skin, we cry out. But when it comes to the cut of God’s judgment, we must cry out first, ahead of the cut. Even now, you must call on the name of the Lord to be saved. It is Christ, not ourselves, who wins for us.
Friend, this may be your Day 2, the day when you make the cut by believing fully in the saving work of Jesus Christ, “the man [God] has appointed.” Many people make the mistake of thinking Day 2 is the day they die. Then and only then can they know if they are “right” with God. But here is what we preach: You can never make the cut on your own; you can never be right with God because you are good enough. You must have Jesus. Surrender to him today and you will never have to worry about making the cut again.
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Jeff Hopper
August 10, 2021
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The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.
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