So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. (Galatians 5:16, NLT)
Some time ago, I had the pleasure of playing Atlanta’s most exclusive and well-manicured golf course, Peachtree Golf Club. Peachtree is probably the closest thing you’ll find to Augusta National, so I thought it was fitting that I got to play it the week of the Masters. I really enjoyed the creativity it took to play on these unbelievably fast and undulating greens; however, if there is a fault to this course, it is that you have a lot of uphill approach shots where you cannot see the surface of the greens. This is one course you do not want to play without a caddie to point you in the right direction.
I had a caddie. But on the tenth hole, where his presence really should have benefitted me, I just did not pay attention to what he was telling me.
I hit a great drive on a reachable par-5. I had bogeyed the previous hole and was anxious to get that stroke back. Because of my drive, I was able to go for the green up the hill with only a mid-iron, but I could not see much other than the top of the flag sitting over a large bunker.
God designed into his master plan for us to have access to the greatest caddie ever, the Holy Spirit.
My caddie told me to hit it at a tree behind the green that was about 40 feet right of the flag. I appreciated his advice, but I had a little more aggressive line in mind. I hit the shot almost right at the flag and it hit on the back side of the bunker and tumbled all the way over the green. When I got up to the green, I realized why my caddie told me to aim 40 feet right of the flag; there was a huge slope that would catch every shot hit over there and it would feed right down to the hole. I did not get up and down for birdie and I was kicking myself for not listening.
You may recognize a parallel between this incident and our relationship with God. Knowing that our lives would consist of a lot of “blind shots,” God designed into his master plan for us to have access to the greatest caddie ever, the Holy Spirit.
We learn in Galatians 5 that we have been given the Spirit so that we will not gratify the desires of our flesh and the temptations of the world that tear us away from a close walk with God. However, at times we stray from the advice and leading of our “caddie” and are tempted to gratify the desires of our flesh. Because we are born descendants of Adam and Eve, we will always be battling our sinful nature even after we are made a new creation through Christ Jesus, and that is why our loving God gave us the gift of his Spirit.
What I love about the encouragement of Galatians 5 is that it was written in congruence with a message that we are no longer under the law. God desires for us to live with freedom, but he also wants us to make choices that draw us closer to him and bear the fruit evident of a life guided by our divinely appointed caddie: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (that last of which might well lead to birdies on reachable par-5’s!).
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Josh Nelson
Originally published April 13, 2011
Copyright 2011 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.
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