Gold

I’ve been watching a bit of the Olympics this week with a thought, “What if we poured as much devotion into getting a gold medal from God as the athletes do from the Olympic committee?” We’d lose.

Here’s a fun question I read this week, “How do you chart spiritual growth so that the Pharisees don’t win?” Assuming someone is already a believer, we tend to chart growth as doing things - maybe baptism, church membership, time in prayer, bible study, memorization, journaling, etc. But I wonder, using that type of measure, if the Pharisees don’t win.

According to a recent Reveal (Willow Creek Association) study, at a certain point in our spiritual journey, “increased involvement in church activities ceases to correlate to spiritual growth.” A Barna study revealed that most people believe that “spiritual growth consists in trying hard to follow the rules of the Bible.” Trying hard - the Pharisees win again.

Here’s my thought: In the Olympics you receive gold medal as a result of your work. In the spiritual world you become gold because of the work Christ is doing in you. In the Olympic world you work harder to win. In the spiritual world you surrender to win.

Maybe this will help. My 8th grade Algebra teacher won “The Teacher of the Year” award (just for the state of Arizona I think). I remember it was a big deal, and I was glad, because without his help I wouldn’t have passed. I remember how surprised and humbled he was to receive the award - and all of us students were genuinely excited for him, and made a big deal out of it in class. It was extra special, as he was pretty old (probably about my age now, sigh), and he wasn’t going to be teaching much longer. However, what if he hadn’t helped me overcome my problem in Algebra? What if he had been a jerk snuggling up to the award committee for a decade, doing favors in order to one day get his award? The award then wouldn’t be special, it would be sick. As students we probably still would have done something in his class – but he wouldn’t have liked it.

Someone said, “Self-improvement is no more God’s plan than self-salvation.” Wish I had said it.

Dan