At first glance at the title you may be wondering what do we have in common with a world famous golfer or a major league baseball player.\u00a0 The answer is actually very simple.\u00a0 One day we will stand before God and give an account.\u00a0 For the longest time the sports world and many others had a love affair with Tiger Woods.\u00a0 After all for a while he was the Jack Nicklaus of my generation (for those who aren’t familiar with Jack Nicklaus, he was one of the best if not the best golfer of his generation).\u00a0 Tiger was doing things on a golf course that the average person couldn’t even dream of, and he was winning the major tournaments.\u00a0 Three years ago however it came out that Tiger Woods cheated on his then wife.\u00a0 It has been a long three years for Woods.\u00a0 Just this year it seemed as though he was getting back to his greatness as a golfer.\u00a0 While at first Tiger was the punch line to many jokes, once he started winning on the PGA Tour again people seemed to forget his past mistakes and start cheering for him again.\u00a0 While visiting my parents last week with my family I believe my dad made a good observation.\u00a0 He said “people and the PGA tour don’t care about Tiger’s character as long as he wins or is close to the top of the leaderboard on Sunday.”\u00a0 My father is exactly right unfortunately.\u00a0 Even in the midst of Tiger dropping four-letter words just yards away from a microphone and heard on national television, there was no criticism launched at him for it, just talk of how he was playing.\u00a0 On ESPN golf analyst said a very astute thing during the first round of last week’s British Open after Tiger unleashed a four-letter word.\u00a0 He said, “either Tiger forgot that there is a camera and microphone close to him at all time, which would be hard to forget, or he just doesn’t care.”\u00a0 Woods continued his tirades through the week and many people continued to root for Tiger to win his next major championship.\u00a0 Tiger may be a great golfer, but his character is like his putting this past Sunday, poor.<\/p>\n
Then there is a baseball player by the name of Ryan Braun.\u00a0 Last year he tested positive for a performance enhancing drug (PED).\u00a0 He was immediately suspended, but then he appealed the suspension.\u00a0 In the course of the appeal, he threw everyone he could find up under the proverbial bus.\u00a0 He talked about how everyone should be held to the high standard he is held to.\u00a0 He went on to say that “I know what did and did not enter my body, and no PED ever entered my body.\u00a0 I don’t know what happened to my sample in the 44 hours from the time it was collected to the time it arrived at the lab to be tested, but I never took a PED.”\u00a0 He got the suspension overturned on a technicality.\u00a0 However, yesterday the truth finally came out.\u00a0 Ryan Braun admitted to using perfomance enhancing drugs as it related to yet another investigation into him doing it.\u00a0 After owning up to it, he was suspended for the rest of this year.\u00a0 Here was a man who for a year and a half denied and lied to everyone intentionally, and only when he thought it would benefit him did he finally come clean.\u00a0 Ryan Braun’s character much like my beloved Chicago Cubs play this year (and the previous 105 years) is poor!<\/p>\n
But what does all of this have to do with us?\u00a0 Both of these athlete’s stories remind me of a verse found in the Old Testament.\u00a0 Numbers 32:23 says, “. . . be sure your sin will find you out.”\u00a0 Let’s be honest, we have all lied about things to people, we have engaged in the “deny till you die” strategy.\u00a0 There is sin in our life that we hope and pray no one ever finds out.\u00a0 We go to great lengths to keep it hidden while making sure we control what people think about us.\u00a0 Our reputation is what people think about us, our character is who we really are, especially when no one is around.\u00a0 We may be able to fool some people all of the time, all people some of the time, but we are never fooling God.\u00a0 He sees everything including our thoughts, even the ones we never openly express.\u00a0 And there will be a day that we will give an account for our life.\u00a0 A good way to steer clear of a potentially embarrassing situation is this, if you wouldn’t do it with Jesus standing right beside you, then you don’t need to do it at all.\u00a0 By the way, Jesus is always there!<\/p>\n
By His grace and through His strength may we live for Him<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At first glance at the title you may be wondering what do we have in common with a world famous golfer or a major league baseball player.\u00a0 The answer is actually very simple.\u00a0 One day we will stand before God … Read More