Rules. There’s something about them that makes us want to break them.
But if you’re an NFL player and you break a rule, it can cost you big bucks! For instance, physical contact with an official costs a player $35,096 for the first offense and $70,194 for the second! (It’s a lot cheaper to simply yell at the referee from the other side of the TV screen.)
The majority of us just want to bend rules a bit to make our lives easier. Most commonly we exceed the speed limit. (I work at an insurance company, and soon after scanning files there discovered that no one gets tickets for going 1-4 miles over the speed limit. So I started going 4 miles faster than I should on a regular basis because I felt justified in doing so!) Other common laws people break include littering, jaywalking, underage drinking, and failing to get a pet license for the family dog!
But this is the time of year when many of us assign ourselves a new set of rules to keep for 12 months. You cannot find these documented in state or federal law books. These rules are called diets, and more often than not we fail to keep them. Whatever the diet forbids is the thing we begin to crave. If eating low carbs, we crave fresh bread! If eating low protein, we crave filet mignon! If eating low sugar, we crave dessert! And if eating raw foods, we crave an entire Thanksgiving meal!
In a way God’s first rule was a diet. Adam and Eve could eat of any tree in the Garden except one. Just one! So what was the one thing Eve craved (with the helpful enticement of the snake?) Exactly! She didn’t want steak or wine or chocolate, just that forbidden fruit.
It’s no coincidence that the first part of the word diet is DIE! And while some of us have a hard time saying no to others, we especially dislike saying no to ourselves. Personally, I prefer to get what I want, because I believe it will make me happy.
But we’re in a new kingdom now, and the ends no longer justify the means. The way up is down.
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it (Matthew 16:24-25).
Jesus was letting us in on a secret. Refusing to live a self-absorbed life leads to something far greater. Or as Paul wrote in Galatians 6:8 (Contemporary English Version),
If you follow your selfish desires, you will harvest destruction, but if you follow the Spirit, you will harvest eternal life.
Keeping our eyes on the bigger picture, the greater goal, leads to something better than instant gratification.
And with God’s help we can keep that one “rule” of denying ourselves daily much more consistently.
What hit convicted me the most in your post, Carrie, was the statement, “the ends no longer justify the means”. I realize I need to deal with numerous “bad habits” that relate to wanting what I want RIGHT NOW! What I hope you can reflect on and write about at some point, is that tightrope that Christians have always walked, which is – is it wrong to enjoy God’s blessings? Must we become ascetics?? Where is the balance? God made us creatures of flesh, even if the holy spirit dwells in us – 🙂