Rev. Reed Lee Pedersen's
I am a golfer…a really bad golfer…but I love to golf. Sometimes I hit the shot that makes me want to go play another round of golf, but a lot of the time I agree with Mark Twain who said, “Golf is a good walk spoiled.” As frustrating as it is to improve my golf game I find the game of golf parallels quite nicely with the Christian life.
How well do you follow the commandments? Do you put things before God? Swear? Let yourself get busy so you don’t set aside time for God and God’s Word? Treat elders and authorities without respect or as an elder or authority do not give a reason to be respected? Kill somebody? Look lustfully at someone not your spouse? Spoken poorly about someone behind their back? Or wished that you had the money, house, fame, or life of another human being? “You shall love the Lord your God, therefore, and keep [The Lord’s] charge, [The Lord’s] decrees, [The Lord’s] ordinances, and [The Lord’s] commandments always.” - Deut 11:1 Did you past the test? It’s a pass/fail test. The hard part is that anything under 100% loyalty and faithfulness to God is a fail. For those of you that think you do all of those things read Matthew 5:21-30 and reconsider. So what is the price for failure? Perhaps Romans 6:23 is popping in your head “For the wages of sin is death…” Death is our reward or price for failure. That is what we get for not being perfect! Hold up. I hope you notice the ellipses (…) for the scripture passage. Romans 6:23 is not a doom and gloom verse. Here is the verse in its entirety: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The point of the Christian life is not to make ourselves perfect. Christ has done that for us. “Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” – Romans 6:4 A Christian life is given a perspective of newness of life. You live your life as faithfully as you can to God and your neighbor because of this newness of life given. This is where golf comes back into the fold. I do not know of anyone that after playing 18 holes of golf had a perfect score of 18. (I am happy to break 100 most of the time) Yet, you go out and play to enjoy the game and maybe have a few better shots than you had the game before. We go out in our lives trying to live better and do better than we did before without any stress of having a perfect day. You will fail if you think you can be perfectly faithful to God just as you will fail if you think you can shoot an 18 after 18 holes of golf. Luckily, as Christians we can go out and keep playing the game of life always trying our best without the worry of being perfect. Points and Questions to Ponder
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Pastor Reed Pedersen
10/17/2017 09:11:52 am
Feel free to answer the questions in the comment section! I would love to interact with you.
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AuthorPastor Reed is a first call pastor at Augustana Lutheran Church in Andover, Illinois. Archives
July 2019
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