Tag Archives: gamble

Do You Like to Gamble? Try Betting on Sin: It ALWAYS pays Off

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Sins are something we hear about from the time we are little. Sure, it starts out as “Make good decisions”, but eventually we know what they are really talking about. There are actions that are forbidden. Some of those actions are big and obvious, and some of them are smaller and don’t seem to mean as much. The truth is, though, everybody commits sins as if there are no consequences.

Perhaps every now and then we should remind ourselves that sins have a price, and they have to be accounted for. Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death.” In the Biblical worldview, sin and death are inextricably linked, and indeed it was sin which brought death into the world. Once mankind was corrupted with sin, then everyone’s physical life became corruptible. Sin resulted in death, and only cleansing from sin’s corruption could change that paradigm. Isaiah offered some hope, however: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land…” Isaiah 1:18-19

So, Define Sin

The Bible seems to make a big deal about sin, but the whole idea of sin is not a real popular topic in our culture. If you call something sin, then you are defining what people should or shouldn’t do, and we should all be able to decide that for ourselves, right? If you call me a sinner, then perhaps you are being biased or judgmental. Who are YOU to judge what is wrong or right?

Sin suggests personal failure and individual accountability, but when people do something wrong in our society, there are suddenly a vast array of excuses and explanations about why it’s suddenly ok to break the law or disobey authority. Somebody else did something wrong, so it’s ok for me to do something wrong in return. (Whatever happened to “two wrongs don’t make a right”?)

A Definition that Hits the Bulls-eye

The New Testament uses the Greek word amartano for sin. It means “I miss the mark”. It was a term also used in archery to describe any shot that didn’t hit the bulls-eye. The whole notion of sin’s penalty is not so much connected to every individual act, but rather the impact of falling short, of failing to achieve perfection. If you miss the mark, then you have sinned. Perfection equals sinless-ness. Anything less than perfection equals sin.

In Romans 3:23, Paul says that “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Since nobody is perfect, then everybody is a sinner. Them. Me. You. We are all subject to sin, and yes, we all lie, cheat, disobey, disrespect, demand our own way, and do wrong. Remember what Paul says about that in the first part of Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death.”

So, what’s the big deal about sin? The presence of sin provides a certain payday, and its ultimate reward is always death. Isaiah uses graphic terms to describe it. He says your sins “are like scarlet”, and “red as crimson”. If you have ever killed a deer or butchered an animal, then these descriptions make sense. The blood price of sin is death, and Isaiah reminds us that sin is an ugly, messy, despicable business. When sin entered our world, death came with it as an inescapable consequence. (See “Adam and Eve”) Don’t forget that not only did Adam and Eve die, but so did the animals that clothed them, the plants that fed them. The bloody business of sin affected everything.

Don’t Take Away My Fun!

Isn’t it interesting that Satan, who wants us all to die, markets sin as fun, when ultimately it’s really just the opposite? He told Eve she could be like God. Satan pitches sin as pleasure and gratification. (Hey, we’re suckers for that!) He tells us today that the Lord is like a cosmic kill-joy who wants to take away all our fun, but if you drill down into the logical extension of sin, perhaps there is a larger picture. WHAT IF sin really brings death? They say that the most common last words in Texas are “Hold my beer and watch this!” That’s probably not true, but consider:

Getting a nice warm buzz on cold beer helps us to party, but when you find yourself crossing out of your lane into that semi, or dying in a hospital bed from cirrhosis of the liver, then sin is not really so fun anymore… Recreational drugs can get you high and provide escape, but when you are fighting addiction and can’t shake it, then sin suddenly stops being fun anymore. The heat of passion might be exciting, but when you find yourself in a broken relationship, or sitting in a clinic about to have an abortion, then sin is really not so fun anymore… Satan’s marketing plan is to sell sin as fun in order to sow seeds of tragedy.

The Real Reason God hates Sin

God doesn’t hate sin because it’s fun. He hates sin because it’s deadly. God created us in his image, blessed with His love and possibilities, offering us all the trees in the garden and eternal life in return for obedience—and instead we chose self-will, fun and death. Be grateful today that our Father understands the impact of sin, and provided the answer.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For He made Him [Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Jesus Christ offered himself in our place as a sinless substitute to pay our sinful death penalty.

Isaiah says that our scarlet sins will be made white as snow, and our crimson stain will be as white as wool. When you read ALL of Romans 6:23, Isaiah’s words make sense: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” If you have ever sinned, be glad. If you have ever sinned, be grateful.

The Wages of Sin

Every man or woman who has ever drawn a breath
Will someday learn that wages of the sin they did are death.
Adam and Eve discovered that when Paradise was Lost,
And made their own decisions without reckoning the cost.
And so it is with all of us. The courtroom we are in
Demands we pay the deadly, scarlet penalty for sin.
But God allowed His Son to pay our penalty in full:
Though our sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as wool!
Though Satan calls for us to join his deadly, angry horde,
The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

To buy my latest book, Real People, Real Christmas: Thirty-one Days Discovering the Hidden Treasures of the Christmas Story, go here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1729034918/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
For Slaying Giants: Thirty Days with David, go here: https://www.amazon.com/Slaying-Giants-Thirty-Devotions-Ordinary/dp/172568327X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1535814431&sr=8-1&keywords=Slaying+Giants%3A+Thirty+Days+With+David
To buy my book, Beggar’s Bread, go here: https://www.amazon.com/Beggars-Bread-Devotions-Ordinary-Guy/dp/1535457392/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473336800&sr=8-1&keywords=Beggar%27s+Bread

The Biggest Gamble Ever Was Doing What Had Never. Been. Done.

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If you stop and think about it, life is a gamble. It is about taking risks and hoping for a good outcome. The bigger the stakes, the more significant the outcome is. I have always thought that we tend to minimize the cosmic transaction whereby Christ became a man… I’m sure that God knew what he was doing, but to my finite mind, it had to be the biggest gamble in history.

Doing What Had Never Been Done

They say hindsight is always 20-20, but splitting apart the Trinity had never been done in all the eons of history. God was One Person. Separating Himself and sending Jesus into the world as a mere man seems like a pretty radical gamble to take. Paul describes it like this “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond-servant, and coming in the likeness of men.” (Philippians 2:5, NIV)

Was this a gamble for God? A good theologian would never ask that, because God’s omniscience precludes such a thought. But to me (obviously a lesser theologian), it raises the question (have you ever truly considered this?). Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be God? Not just like Superman, or even somebody with magical powers, but to be totally loving, totally self-sufficient? To be able to transcend time and space, and to have all wisdom and knowledge and power? To have limitless aspects of character and creativity, to exist transcendent and triune, three expressions of function woven into one intricate and intimate personality?

Louie Giglio has a great series of sermons about God’s infinite power and presence. (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC3Bl0LHSV8WkmhrWXFa28Q ) He looks at the vast expanses of the universe and reminds us of God’s grandeur and infinite majesty. He also looks into the microscope and breaks down God’s infinitely intricate creation in the minutest detail. Check him out on YouTube, you’ll be glad you did!

No Limits

But for now, imagine being infinite, not just in moments of time but in capacity and power. What is it like to have the ability to see all ends and understand all cosmic secrets? What would being the creator feel like? Can you imagine forming living things, breathing life into them? Could you build not only the circle of life and the food chain but every intricate organ system, cellular structure, and neural transmitter that provides the basis for perceiving, sensing, and thinking? What if you were not just Louie Giglio, but the One who created Louie Giglio?

What would it feel like to be absolutely unfettered by physical limits, to dwell throughout and around and above all created things? To be irrevocably, spiritually and intimately connected by eternal bonds to your Father, who nurtures like a newborn’s mother, who leads like a shepherd, protects like a warrior, whose very nature is intertwined as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in a complex and thrilling relationship because He IS love, and with whom as the Son you have the Closest. Relationship. Ever.

An Abrupt Change

Now imagine taking a gamble on giving all that up and accepting limitations, allowing yourself to be subject to weariness or pain, to deal with temptation, to have to walk places among people who ignorantly assume they are more important or powerful than you are… What would it be like to place yourself into your own creation as a tiny, vulnerable infant in a world full of ignorant, apathetic, cruel, selfish men? How would it feel to go from being King to being a servant?

(I sometimes wonder how God knew for sure he could reverse that process– was there even an infinitesimally small chance that Satan could win, or that the Son might perish, never to rejoin the Father? We have the benefit of hindsight, but wasn’t it really a cosmic gamble for the universe? In a Marvel comics “bizarro” world, couldn’t it have been even remotely somehow possible that the Son becoming man would have torn apart the fabric of the universe and unraveled the cosmos? In reality, Jesus bet everything he had and everything that existed on the Father’s ability to do what He promised.)

Paul says we should think about that contrast, and think like Jesus did. If you could stop for a minute and look out at this world with the knowledge, the connection, the intimacy and the love of your Creator, would you see it any differently? Would you see it as it was intended to be? And if you saw Jesus as the eternal King of Kings who set his advantages aside to dwell in his creation, to risk his life on our behalf, would it explain anything about how he taught, what he did, and why he was SO different?

Not the ONLY Question but Still a Very GOOD Question

You can question the Bible’s inerrancy. You can scoff at miracles and relics, but just do this: take a look at Jesus’ teachings and try to figure out where they came from. Investigate the life and words of a rabbi from 2000 years ago, and explain how it still applies today. Decide if it still has relevance even though it is at odds with how the world of selfish power works, and offers an approach to life that actually challenges followers to be like Jesus.

Place Your Bets

This is the real question, isn’t it? Was Jesus any different? Could he have been “God with us”, or was he just a guy? Was he a prophet who died early or the Lamb of God? Did he miss his fulfillment or fulfill his mission? If he was Joe Average Prophet, then hold your chips, or place a bet on Buddha or Mohammed or Joseph Smith; but if he was God, I’m thinking it has to be all in.

The Highest Stakes

Could the Lord have failed when he became a fragile child?
Was it guaranteed that he’d prevail?
Satan and his minions used their power, dark and wild
To cause redemption’s plan to fold and fail.
Jesus came to earth not as a king but as a slave,
Committed to a plan that could not fall;
The cross required his life exchanged for those he came to save:
The chips were down, and Jesus bet it all.
All consequence in history is small compared to this:
Sin requires a death. Instead of ours, He gave us his.

To buy my latest book, Real People, Real Christmas: Thirty-one Days Discovering the Hidden Treasures of the Christmas Story, go here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1729034918/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
For Slaying Giants: Thirty Days with David, go here: https://www.amazon.com/Slaying-Giants-Thirty-Devotions-Ordinary/dp/172568327X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1535814431&sr=8-1&keywords=Slaying+Giants%3A+Thirty+Days+With+David
To buy my book, Beggar’s Bread, go here: https://www.amazon.com/Beggars-Bread-Devotions-Ordinary-Guy/dp/1535457392/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473336800&sr=8-1&keywords=Beggar%27s+Bread