For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
(Philippians 1:21, NASB)
I loved the dialogue and bantering on the Golf Channel centering on the success of Scottie Scheffler. Everyone has an opinion. They intimated that Scottie’s faith gave him a little advantage and helped him perform better.
One of the commentators remarked that he believed his faith was like having another mental golf coach that helped his performance. I thought, “They have no idea what they are talking about.”
No, Scottie Scheffler’s faith is his life, and his golf score does not define him. God defines him as He does all of us. God says, “This is my beloved child, and I love him very much.”
Several years ago, a candidate for a political office who had repeatedly talked about his faith in Jesus was asked this question, “If you are elected, can you separate your faith in God from the issue at hand and represent the people who elected you and keep your faith separate?” I loved his answer: “Absolutely not. I have found that my faith informs my answer, which will lead to what is best for all people. Aren’t we to submit and serve one another and really love one another? When we all do this, the results are the best for all.”
Our responsibility is to surrender and abandon ourselves first and foremost to God for His glory. Our usefulness and momentary glory or challenge are His concern, not ours. You see, God is in both the glory and the challenge. He is all and in all. He is in the blessing and also the thorn. Our challenge is to abandon ourselves to both.
Abandon may be a strong word to some, but we all have so many choices to make every day. Abandon, in this case, may mean knowing God so well that we will be filled with his wisdom to make the right choices.
It means many times making the hard choices to follow the narrow way. In his book Abandoned to God, Oswald Chambers says it this way: “I have to make an effort to keep my conscience so sensitive that I walk without offense. I should be living in such perfect sympathy with God’s Son that in every circumstance, the spirit of my mind is renewed, and I make out at once what is that good, acceptable, and perfect will of God.”
Once we become infected with Jesus, our life explodes and changes. We are all becoming who we should be. C.S. Lewis says in Mere Christianity: “The Christian way is different: harder and easier. Christ says, ‘Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money, and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there; I want to have the whole tree down. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself; my own will shall become yours.’” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)
Scottie Scheffler will probably be known as one of the greatest golfers of this generation, and yet that does not define who he is in God’s eyes. On that last day, what is more important—major championship wins or faithful service and abandonment to our Savior? I think we know the answer.
Closing prayer – As we grow closer to you, enable us to abandon ourselves to your plan and your way.