Original Entry: July 23, 2008
McMinnville, Or
This is
what the Lord says to the house of Israel: Seek me and live; do not seek
Bethel, do not go to Gilgal, do not journey to Beersheba. For Gilgal will surely go into exile, and
Bethel will be reduced to nothing. Seek
the Lord and live, or he will sweep through the house of Joseph like a
fire; it will devour, and Bethel will have no one to quench it. Amos 5:4-6
Men keep
score. Have you noticed? This summer I initiated summer long 3-D archery
tournament for men. It is like redneck
golf where archers walk a course and shoot dozens of full sized replicas of
wild game animals. Scores are based on how close an archer hits to the bulls
eye. Nearly 20 men paid an entrance fee to shoot together for a competition
that could earn them a dozen new arrows worth around $100. The person with the best average score after
at least 5 sessions wins the summer tournament.
I won. I
told you men keep score!
Men keep
score by the size of their homes, the cost of their cars, the beauty of their
wives, the success of their kids, the green in their wallets, and the list goes
on and on. We value success in churches not so much by the size of the people
but the size of Sunday attendance. A great temptation of men is to be a mile
wide and an inch deep instead of the other way around.
The
problem, men, is when our eyes are so focused on conquering the Bethels,
Gilgals and Beershebas in life we often neglect the most important thing which
is to, “Seek the Lord and live” (Amos
5:4-6).
Men keep
score, but make sure you are in the right game while you do it. God has wired
men to be “more than conquerors” (Romans
8:37). Conquering however begins with defeating the sin in our lives and
seeking Christ in all things. A man’s trophies will fade away but how he seeks
his God will last an eternity.
Keep the
right score.
