Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love. (Ephesians 6:24, NIV)
It must have started when I was four years old. At least that’s when it was indelibly marked on my body.
Just a little guy with not enough smarts to protect himself, I was standing too close when a neighbor boy took up a 4-iron on our back lawn and unleashed his youthful whack. The club ended its arc in my chin, and eight stitches and a lost tooth later I was forever a golfer.
The religious want their own good works to count before God; the irreligious want to measure up to the ideals of men.It actually took another 10 years before golf became “my game,” but it has never been anything else since. I still love it, even on its most frustrating days. I want to be outdoors, walking the lush green of a healthy fairway. I want to tee it up and send it soaring with the intended shape on the foreseen line. And I even want to pursue the expectation of a score at par or better, though now I’m just as happy when it happens on only one nine or the other, which isn’t so often.
I’m never really bothered by this undying love of the game. I’m not a gambler or a talker, and if there are more important things to be done, I’ll do them first. So I would not say I have a problem.
But then I read Paul’s closing words to the Ephesians and I am forced to wonder: Is my undying love for Jesus as it should be? Do I love other things—like golf—with greater affection?
We should always be measuring our faith, hope, and love. There’s a gut check aspect to looking in the spiritual mirror. Will we be found lacking?
Those living without an understanding of God’s grace and forgiveness will always have a hard time with their lack. The religious want their own good works to count before God; the irreligious want to measure up to the ideals of men. If the mirror check finds them on the short side, discouragement sets in, followed by desperate efforts to cope. It’s the proverbial vicious cycle—except that it doesn’t feel proverbial at all.
But when we know God’s grace, when we confess our sins and experience his forgiveness, we have a place to go with the lack. We may see that our faith is in doubt, our hope has shifted off Jesus, or our love operates only with conditions or when it’s convenient. Yet we know what to do.
An undying love for Jesus is evidenced in our ready return to him. We go to him with our lack, with our weakness, with our sin—because where else would we go? Peter knew: It is Christ alone who offers words of eternal life. In him, we find the peace that sustains us.
When our old sinful self dies to Christ, we are brought to life, resurrected for his glory and purpose. May we be undying in our love for him and his having given us all this.
—
Jeff Hopper
December 5, 2017
Copyright 2017 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.