Today's Devotional

May 19, 2005

Subject:  Running So I Can Drink

Deuteronomy 6:24 - "And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day."

So I was on my way to the gym after work yesterday and I saw a group of sailors running by.  They were huffing and puffing and then I heard one girl say, "just think how good it will feel when you're drinking that beer tonight."  I was simply a bystander, but I had to yell out to the crew while they were running, " you mean you're gonna put in all this hard work and then just throw it away."  In my view, this good thing you're doing should be part of a bigger plan to do something positive for yourself, not just a counterweight to offset something bad that you're going to do.

Sadly that's the way many of us are as believers.  We think that going to church or doing some good deed is going to make us OK with God and acceptable in His sight after we've done some "bad" thing (sin).  In other words, if I've cheated on a test or my taxes, I can offset that by giving food to a homeless person or by attending bible study or something like that.  In this cycle we continue our existence as though the good offsets the bad.   In reality, that's a sad condition that leaves you no better off than you were with the sin that drove you to now do the "good" thing.  

God gave us a reason to "do all of His statutes."  It had a much greater purpose than to simply counterbalance the bad stuff.  He wants us to do more than simply "not sin."  He wants our plan of doing good to be part of a bigger walk on the road to holiness.  

Today lets just not do good that is temporary.  Lets do good that is "for our good always."    

Carlen