CHEATING

Hosea 10:1-14:9; Jude 1-25; Psalm 127:1-5; Proverbs 29:15-17

“So now, come back to your God. Act with love and justice, and always depend on him. But no, the people are like crafty merchants selling from dishonest scales—they love to cheat.”

“I am writing to all who have been called by God the Father, who loves you and keeps you safe in the care of Jesus Christ. May God give you more and more mercy, peace, and love. Dear friends, I had been eagerly planning to write to you about the salvation we all share. But now I find that I must write about something else, urging you to defend the faith that God has entrusted once for all time to his holy people. I say this because some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches, saying that God’s marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. The condemnation of such people was recorded long ago, for they have turned against our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”

“Unless the Lord builds a house, the work of the builders is wasted. Unless the Lord protects a city, guarding it with sentries will do no good. It is useless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night, anxiously working for food to eat; for God gives rest to his loved ones.”

“Discipline your children, and they will give you peace of mind and will make your heart glad.”

I don’t like to think of myself as a cheater, but if I’m honest, there’s little choice. The fact is, I knowingly allow myself to backslide. I give in to my temper. I allow myself to become spiritually lackadaisical. I affirmatively decide to do what I know will not please God. In the overall eternal perspective, I rationalize that my “little” sin just won’t matter much. Surely, the Lord wouldn’t condemn me for something so inconsequential. That’s dangerously poor reasoning on its own. But sin is not necessarily all about God, either. Sin, however small, also undermines our own character and identity. When we cheat, we do not only cheat Christ. We cheat ourselves. If it continues long enough, we can go from hypocrisy to outright spiritual mutation. By returning to sin, we abandon something beautiful and complete to revert to something twisted and ugly, and that just makes no sense. Thus, it’s critically important to see our backsliding clearly both for what it is and what it can become.

Ambition and pride have always been big issues for me. To begin, assessing things honestly and realizing I deserve none of it, I’ve been incredibly blessed with a good amount of natural talent for what I do. Compounding the temptation, I was raised (appropriately so) to take pride in what I do, and to do it in a worthy way. There’s nothing wrong with, or even all that unusual about, having a passion for excellence. My issue inevitably involves being clear about Who gets the ultimate glory. It is disturbingly easy for me to usurp recognition that rightly belongs to Jesus. Bluntly, I tend to get the big head, and it’s never a pretty sight.

Thankfully (I reluctantly admit God knows best), Christ tends to address my ambitious pride by countering it with a sort of forced humility. Success, as I know it, has a very frustrating habit of frequently ending in some kind of glass ceiling. This most often occurs when someone administratively above me claims privilege and stops me, or worse, takes the opportunity to do something I just know I can do better. GRRRR! Twice this week alone, this very thing has happened, and I’ve been stymied, personally and professionally. Not surprisingly, I suppose, it has occurred on the heels of great success. It feels like quite a slap in the face, but whether I like or agree with it or not, I probably needed it. Indeed, Jehovah’s reply was devastatingly simple. I do not have to like it. I do have to accept it. His plans for me lie elsewhere, and He knows too much success will be a real distraction.

No matter how much I voraciously hunger and thirst for unparalleled achievement and recognition (how unattractive is that!?!), the Lord is wise enough to know that, for me, such is a potential poison best doled out only in small doses. He does not want me to cheat in this area at all, because He knows (better than I know myself) how rapidly I can sink and just get mired in pride and ambition. Thus, He gives me the grace of simply being unable to get there from here. This may be the most “backhanded” blessing in my life, but I recognize it as a blessing nonetheless. My spiritual act of discipline is to reconcile myself to His viewpoint while maintaining a passion for excellence. It takes a lot of discipline, and I am not much good at it. Rudely, my intellect keeps screaming that it’s hard to soar like an eagle when one is surrounded by turkeys. But that is the Devil talking, and tempting.

Oddly, what I have learned in this process is that what I am – my heart, who I was created to be – is not necessarily what I want to be. The Lord has a quick response: so what? I am called to be just who He says I am, His man, and not my own. Life will be a lot easier once I fully reconcile myself to that idea. I suppose that’s what spiritual discipline is all about. Still, like a mustang fighting the bridle, I don’t like it. I do want to cheat. When He says, “No!” I frequently allow myself to backslide into wounded pride, perhaps the ugliest form of self-pity.

Name the sin; it doesn’t matter what the specifics are. When we choose to cheat and relax our spiritual standards, what we really are doing is indulging our most base selves in contradiction of everything our Creator made and intended us to be. That is never healthy, regardless of how good it may feel at the time. We certainly can and should continue to claim forgiveness. But we need to be extraordinarily careful our lapses do not become a lifestyle of “it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission.” Such reasoning puts us right back on the slippery slope to Hell.