Summer officially began last Wednesday, the 21st of June, but for every school aged child, the first day of summer is not June 21st, but rather the last day of school. As kids ourselves, when that final bell rang, and all the schoolwork and worry disappeared, we thought we had been released into absolute freedom. We felt nothing but pure joy.

But here is the irony. That freedom still came with restrictions and curfews imposed on us by our parents. However, most of us didn’t mind these limits because we were getting to do almost everything we wanted to do. We also knew that our parents loved us, and while they wanted us to enjoy our summer, they also didn’t want us to get hurt or be in danger. So if we obeyed the “rules” of summer, we could have three months of carefree living.

Likewise, God wants us to experience that same sense of joy and freedom every day of our lives. He wants us to wake up each morning and, just like we did as kids, look forward to a “summer” of endless possibilities. But often we don’t. Instead, we wake up with a heaviness brought on by the worries over and the consequences of wrong choices. The reason for this is that we have forgotten the “paradox of summer.”

Despite what we may like to think, ultimate freedom is not the absence of rules or restrictions. Instead, ultimate freedom is the result of total submission, trust, and obedience. We have a loving father, perfect in all ways, who wants us to enjoy fully the life He has given us, so He has set boundaries and restrictions to ensure that we won’t get hurt or be in danger. True, we live in a world that will inflict pain and sorrow of its own, but absolute obedience will allow us to escape the destructive physical and emotional consequences that come from our own disobedient actions.

So if you are waking up with a heaviness that is a result of wrong choices or disobedience, then jettison those activities, place your life in the hands a compassionate father, accept the loving boundaries, and experience a freedom you have never felt before. 

Throughout high school and college, and for most of my career after college, I either played or coached tennis. I loved the sport. It required everything: speed, endurance, quickness, strength, finesse, quick thinking, and patience.

However, as my body aged and my knees complained more and more about what I was requiring of them, I decided to hang up the racquets, jump ship, and take up golf.  In a different way, golf required many of the same things that tennis did–minus the quickness perhaps–but came with an additional benefit: Walking on grass was much more body friendly than running on cement.

But there was even one more perk I hadn’t counted on. Something that golf offered that tennis didn’t, and that was the Invitational.

An Invitational, is where a person from one golf club “invites” you to play in a competition at her golf club. It can be a one or two day affair but always comes with a manicured course, a delicious meal, a nice tee prize, a plethora of raffle items, and then, to cap it off, prizes not only for placing in the tournament but also for getting Closest to the Pin, Longest Drive, or Most Accurate Drive. In other words, the hosting club, its grounds crew, and its members go out of their way to make sure you have a great experience. The only downside is that you have to pay for the experience and sometimes the cost can be a bit pricey.

In my area, because the summer heat can be pretty intense, most of the Invitationals fall either in May/June or September/October. Therefore, one could end up dishing out a lot of money in a short period of time, but just like the wealthy covet invitations during their social season, so do golfers long to take part in as many Invitationals as they can and so will willingly fork over the money.

Now here’s the irony.  As individuals, we have been invited to a fantastic, never-to-be-exceeded banquet, in a place that is beautiful beyond compare, replete with rewards, with pleasures that will last forevermore,and a welcoming committee like no other…and it is free. Yet many of us reject the invitation while a lot of others aren’t even excited once they have accepted it. How much sense does that make?

Yes, the above are some of the many descriptions of Heaven, and yet so many of us either believe that Heaven will be a letdown, or we really don’t care to know what it will be like.

The Bible has a lot to say about heaven, and I have been told that Randy Alcorn’s book Heaven does a fantastic job of pulling those verses together. I am convinced (aka have my fingers crossed) that there will be golf courses in heaven, and I am hoping Alcorn’s book will provide a bit more assurance. But even if the Bible doesn’t address golf courses specifically (which it doesn't), I have no doubt that heaven will exceed exponentially any expectation I could have, for God’s thoughts and ways are “higher” than mine (Is. 55:9). If he has created such beauty in the heavens and the earth, and such pleasures while we are living in a fallen world, then how much more beautiful and pleasurable will heaven be?

If you are interested in reading Randy Alcorn’s book, just follow the link below to My Favs page. You can bet I will be reading it.
 
Luke 14:15-24 (Parable of the Great Banquet)
Revelation 21:1-22:5 (Description of the New Jerusalem)
I Corinthians 9:24-25 (rewards)
Psalm 116:11 (Immeasurable pleasures)
Luke 15:10; 2 Peter 1:11 (Welcomed to Heaven)

Ever have one of those Ah-ha moments when everything becomes crystal clear? Well, I didn’t have one of those moments. I had a Hmmm moment, a moment when familiar Bible verses suddenly made me take a closer look at God’s truth, others’ lives, and, ultimately, my own life.

I have never questioned a person’s proclamation of faith, but lately I have noticed that for some, life choices and proclamation don’t match.

So here was my question: How far from God’s truth can a true Christian live?

Because the word “Christian” is often defined differently by different people, I use the word “true” for two reasons:

The apostle James reminds us that just believing in God doesn’t grant one salvation, when he says, “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that--and shudder”( James 2:19).

Likewise, there is a difference between someone who acknowledges Jesus as the Christ and proclaims to live by His moral principles, and someone who accepts Jesus Christ as his own Lord and Savior and surrenders his life to Him.

I know that only God knows a person’s heart (Luke 16:15), and that as Christians we fall dreadfully short of righteousness, yet when we sin, the heart should be in conflict as Paul’s is when he writes in Romans 7:15:  “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”  It is evident that Paul doesn’t want to live a sinful life. His desire is to live a righteous one.

One of the steps to accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior is repentance: to know what we are doing is wrong, be convicted of that, feel godly sorrow over it, and then change our behavior. So true repentance would seem to indicate a change in behavior and lifestyle, while remaining willfully disobedient would bring a person’s declaration of faith into question. For instance, if a soldier claims allegiance to his commanding officers but then doesn't obey commands or show honor to those officers, I think people would question the sincerity of his allegiance, and rightly so.

In addition, we are charged “to put off [our] old self, which belongs to [our] former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of [our] minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 4:22-24).

We are in no position, have no right to, and are not tasked with judging someone else’s salvation; God is the ultimate judge, but we have the responsibility to take the litmus test to ourselves. Each of us needs first to look inward and check the condition of our heart. Then we need to look outward to see if our actions and life choices truly reflect what we say we believe.

By the way, I had the question wrong. It isn’t “how far from God’s truth can a true Christian live?” It should be “how far from God’s truth would a true Christian want to live?” The answer is “not one millimeter.”

Do you ever have one of those days, weeks, months, or years where you feel insignificant? Like what you do on a daily basis really doesn’t matter? Well, you aren’t…and you do.

I have spent a lot of time traveling this year… A LOT of time in the air and on the road. When flying, I spend most of my time taking stock of the comfort of the seats, checking out the leg room, and hoping that the snacks will be good and that I will have my own little TV screen on the seat back in front of me. When driving, I take advantage of the cruise control, bask in the air conditioning, and rock out with the stereo system. What I pay little attention to in both cases is the one thing that makes sure I safely get to where I am going––the tires.

An airplane will not get off the ground and will have trouble landing safely without its tires, and a car…well, we know that one. The car isn’t going anywhere without tires. And I would imagine those tires feel pretty unimportant at times and bored with their monotonous responsibility. Most people admiring a car rarely focus on the tires. You don’t hear too many people say, “What stunning tires those are!” nor do you see them running their hands over the tires in adoration. Nope, tires just do their thing, over and over and over again. There is no variation in purpose or routine. They just go round and round, but without them most modes of transportation would have trouble functioning. I think it is a safe bet to say no one notices the tires unless something goes wrong with one of them. Then suddenly, all attention is focused on them.

We need to be careful not to value others who have more noticeable roles as more important or significant. Paul reminds the Corinthian Christians, who were giving more esteem to some of its members, of this very truth in I Corinthians 12:14-26. Then in verse 18 he drives home a very important point––that each person’s place is by design and is purposeful: “… God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired.”

So, regardless of what we do or where we work or who notices us, we ARE important. If we have given God control of our life, then He is using the knowledge and abilities we have at this particular moment to serve His purposes.

So whether a person is of Queen Esther’s esteem, a woman who dared to step into the king’s presence and advocate for God’s people, or Abraham Lincoln, a president who weathered the difficulties of civil war, or someone who does custodial chores in airport restrooms, God has placed each person in his or her position “For such a time as this” (Esther 4:14).

God does not make mistakes. You ARE important, so go out there and burn a little rubber in celebration!