mulligans
The Lord looks down from heaven on the entire human race. [But] all have turned away; all have become corrupt. No one does good (vv.2-3).
READ: Psalm 14:2-3
I took my 7-year-old son to a miniature golf course and, to make our scores competitive, allowed him one “mulligan”—or practice shot—per hole. He did fine until he came to hole 14, which required him to bank his ball off one wall and then another before rolling onto the green. His first shot fell behind the wall, as did his second, and then a couple more. His fifth attempt finally bounced off the wall and dribbled down the fairway—a playable shot. He proudly scampered to his ball, looked up at me and asked, “That counts as one, right?”
I laughed at my son’s eagerness to overlook his several bad shots, but he was only doing in golf what all of us do in other areas. Don’t we often let ourselves “off the hook”? What we immediately recognize as “sin” in someone else, we downplay as an innocent mistake when we do it. Or if we are caught red-handed, with no plausible excuse, we tell ourselves that our sin was a one-time thing and out of character for us.
The problem with letting ourselves off the hook is that we also disqualify ourselves for salvation. If Jesus came to “save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21), then only those who admit and repent of their sins can be saved. This was Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees who indignantly asked why Jesus ate “with such scum” as “tax collectors and other disreputable sinners” (Matthew 9:10-11). Jesus replied that “healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do.” And then he added the clincher, “I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners” (vv.12-13).
Good people don’t need Jesus. Sinners do. Unless we tell the truth about ourselves, we cannot be saved. —Mike Wittmer
Where would you place yourself on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 representing pure evil and 10 meaning entirely good? How does God view you?
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Loading ...the circle of fear
June 4, 2009
READ: 1 John 2:1-11
If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. —1 John 2:1
When the popular band The Eagles prepares a new song for concert, they sit in a circle with acoustic guitars and unamplified voices and rehearse their intricate vocals. They call this exercise “The Circle of Fear” because there is no place to hide and no way to conceal any errors they might make in the harmonies. That sense of absolute exposure for their mistakes is what makes this drill so frightening to them.
Apart from Christ, we would suffer a far worse kind of exposure before the God of all justice. If we had no advocate and no escape, we would also have no hope. But in Christ, the believer has a Defender who stands before the Father on our behalf. First John 2:1 says, “My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” With our failings exposed, He takes our defense. Our Defender carries our relationship with God beyond a “circle of fear” to a fellowship of grace and truth.
Our challenge is to live lives of purity and integrity that honor our heavenly Father. Yet, when we do fail, we do not need to fear abandonment or ridicule from our Father. We have an Advocate who will carry us through. — Bill Crowder
The One who died as our Substitute now lives as our Advocate.
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