But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:57, NIV)
If you’ve ever had the yips—and certainly if you have them now!—you know two things to be true: They have a disturbing, disheartening, demeaning hold on you. And you cannot imagine they will ever go away.
Let me pause for a minute, because we have a surprising number of readers who are not golfers. They will not know what the yips are, and I don’t want to lose them. In golf, the yips are the inability to make a decent effort at a short putt or chip shot. We’re talking about the easiest of shots, those that should be nearly automatic. Instead, this shot strikes terror in the heart of the yipping golfer and the result is almost unspeakably ugly.
I can tell you right now that putting the yips behind you is “new life” for a golfer.There is some debate about whether yips are a matter of bad habits gone wild or a foul mental block. If it’s technically the former, you can be assured it leads to the latter. And the yipper eventually cries out in Pauline despair: “Who shall rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24)
You see, the yips are so much like sin.
What should be easy—doing the littlest right thing—is not.
The habits of our unrighteousness pile one on top of another until we cannot imagine how to climb out from under them.
When our mind is convinced there is no way out, our heart falls into despair.
In the end, we are left with three choices. We may give up and lose hope in ourselves and the world around us. We may in stubborn self-reliance march on, sure we’ll figure it out someday. Or we may admit that we’re at our human end and cry out for rescue.
Now here is the wonder. Rescue is near. His name is Jesus.
I have a hard time being as simple as that, because I know there are many who want a full explanation. They want reason and proof and assurances. Well, here it is: Tell me who else has died to save you from the sin that won’t let go? The mere fact that we can point to no other makes Jesus worthy of consideration.
And here is what the Scripture tells us about the work of Christ:
Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. (Romans 6:3-4)
I can tell you right now that putting the yips behind you is “new life” for a golfer. When you can stand over a three-foot putt and have every smiling confidence it will go in, the game is fun again. You might even invite a friend to play!
In this same way, surrendering your efforts to the completed work of Christ in his death and resurrection, puts your sin to death with him and releases in you a new life. Sin is a haunter, and even for the assured believer it will make every effort to pull you in again. But with new life in Christ, you can look it in the eye and say, “I’ve gone a different path. I’m on course with my Savior.”
—
Jeff Hopper
July 10, 2018
Copyright 2018 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.