Friday Finale | Bowling With God – Episode 13
Originally written November 4, 2011
posted here: https://forthesakeofthetruth.com/?s=bowling+with+god
Bowling With God
There are many people who want to challenge the concept of grace in its entirety. A little grace is fine. You get just enough grace to get saved, and then we are to ‘crucify our flesh’ and live a godly life, following the ‘right and wrong’ rules. That is how we become holy, by seeking holiness and living a godly life.
Sounds good. Anyway, it sounded good to me for years. For years I pushed toward holiness and tried to be godly. And on the outside, everyone could see that I was ‘good’. My heart was right. I loved the Lord will all my heart, soul, and body, so seeking to do right was an extension of my love for Him. Or was it?
In my recent post The Rules That Break Fellowship I talked about my never-ending quest to follow the rules so that I would be right with God.
I love God. I wanted to go to heaven. I wanted to please God. I wanted a holy life. I wanted all the blessings of a child of God. But more than anything, I didn’t want to make God angry with me. The theology I had learned from a child taught me this.
Unfortunately, I didn’t really know the heart of God then. I am so thankful for this past year and a half of getting to know, really know, the heart of God. And He has satisfied that unquenchable desire, and so much more.
Grace, too much grace that is, scares people. They don’t trust themselves to live by grace. So they receive just enough of the grace of God to become born again and declare that they are Christians. Then they put grace on the back burner and begin living by the rules. To please God—and man or man’s theology.
So, I’ve heard it said—
Without the rules, how would we know how to live?
How would we know what to do and not to do?
I’ve been gnawing like a dog on a bone for months now about following the Holy Spirit. But we still feel the need to know the rules of doctrine (man’s theology) so that we can know that we are OK.
Let me make the perfectly clear here. If you follow the Holy Spirit:
- He will never lead you to do anything that violates His own spiritual fruits.
- He will never lead you to be unloving or harmful to others.
- He will even lead you away from things that will harm you.
- He will lead you to obey the laws of the land, should they not violate your relationship with the Lord.
- He will lead you to follow to the letter the God theology that God Himself wrote upon your heart when you became His child.
That pretty much included every pertinent rule that I can think of. I emphasize pertinent.
So why do we fight so hard for the rules and our theology? Yes, fight! When you mention living daily by grace and the total leading of the Holy Spirit, many people get so uncomfortable that their skin crawls and a trickle of fear runs down their back.
They are more defensive with this teaching than an animal backed into a corner protecting its food. They insist the rules bring godly living, therefore righteousness, and to even mention not living by them is sacrilege to them.
When praying and meditating more on this subject, God showed me an analogy. I love analogies. They drive a point home and make it so clear. I believe that is why the parables make such an impression on us and are so memorable.
So, let’s think about bowling. The bowling lane is our path toward our different goals in life, the pins. Now, at first, when we can barely roll the ball, we can have the bumpers put up on the sides so that there is no chance of going into the gutter. It doesn’t matter how we throw the ball, we will get to the end.
I’ve watched my grandchildren bowl, and they are so cute. Sometimes they even get one of those ramp things to aim their ball with. If they roll the ball hard enough, It will get to the end. Sometimes they even get a strike, but rarely. I’ve even seen the ball just stop right before it hit the pins. During that time, the hope is that they will learn to bowl on their own so that when the bumpers come down; they are rarely needed anyway.
But after a while it is embarrassing to have the bumpers up and after all, where is the challenge in that? So the bumpers come down and the ball goes into the gutter time and time again. But we get the ball back and keep trying. The more we try, the better we get. And then we get so good that the ball rolls from our fingers fast and furious and heads straight for the pins, and boom—a strike! Always the bowler whizzes around and shouts a voice of exuberance!
Now, once you are at that point, you can still put the bumpers up, but what is the point? You will be nowhere near them. Yes, occasionally I’ve seen an extraordinary bowler wiggle wrong or make a slight misstep that causes the ball to hit the gutter or maybe just knock down a few pins. But oh well, we’ll try it again. The game keeps going. You get another chance.
It is never anyone’s goal to hit the gutter, bumpers or not! Our goal is to stay out of the gutter. We know if we hit the gutter we won’t hit the pins (goals)!!
Rules are like bumpers. When we are children, our parents are like bumpers, teaching us moral living. Hopefully, it is according to the word. We love God. We love others. We are kind to others. We don’t cheat and steal and harm others. We don’t do things that will harm ourselves, like drinking excessively or smoking.
Now there are markings on the lane. I used to be a horrible bowler, but now I am slightly better. My oldest son taught me about the marks and some basics, and almost instantly I became a better bowler.
Follow the marks. Let them lead you to your goal. If I do that, I don’t go into the gutter. I could put the bumpers up. Just in case my ball were to head for the gutter. But then I would get so reliant on the bumpers that I wouldn’t be so diligent to follow the marks. I wouldn’t be so diligent in seeking suitable form. And then reaching the goal, a strike, would not have the same satisfaction.
Yes, you’ve guessed it. The marks are the Holy Spirit. As long as you follow the Holy Spirit, you will reach your (His) goal for you. Over and over we keep trying until we get better and better at following Him.
But oh my! What if our ball goes into the gutter? Gasp!!! Well, it will roll down and be sent back to us. We experience disappointment, and then we try again. Our friends slap us on the back, express encouraging words, and we take a breath with resolve to do better next time.
You are not punished severely, taken out of the game, or ostracized. Unless, of course, you are in a league, but then that could be like a church where the very people who should encourage you are actually the ones who are criticizing you for your mistakes or violating their theology.
But the game goes on, gutter or not. You don’t quit because your ball hit the gutter. You keep trying to follow the Holy Spirit, and eventually following Him will become second nature.
We know where the gutters are whether the bumpers are up or down. Life is just the same. We know what the right thing to do is without someone telling us. We just know.
Hebrews 8
10 FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL
AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD:
I WILL PUT MY LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS,
AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR HEARTS.
AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD,
AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.
11 “AND THEY SHALL NOT TEACH EVERYONE HIS FELLOW CITIZEN,
AND EVERYONE HIS BROTHER, SAYING, ‘KNOW THE LORD,’
FOR ALL WILL KNOW ME,
FROM THE LEAST TO THE GREATEST OF THEM.
12 “FOR I WILL BE MERCIFUL TO THEIR INIQUITIES,
AND I WILL REMEMBER THEIR SINS NO MORE.”
God desires us to seek Him. For us to know Him and His true heart. The New Covenant states He will write on our hearts what to do, His law, His theology. That is where the Holy Spirit resides, in our innermost being, our heart. In following Him, doing right will be instinctual.
Then this verse says that ‘they shall not teach everyone’. God desires the Holy Spirit to be our teacher. He desires us to know Him, and then we will know what to do without someone telling us what to do. And should we sin in all of this, He will remember them no more.
The first argument against all of this is that people will just go off sinning without rules. If we take away all the dos and don’ts, then they will just go out and do all the wrong things.
Yes, they will do some wrong things. We have all had our balls fall in the gutter, but the game goes on and we try harder by seeking Him. None of us wants our balls in the gutter!
We discount God’s ability or desire to govern His people. But when we allow Him to govern with His abounding love, we come nowhere near the gutters. We stay on track in the center and achieve the goal with power and precision.
What most people can’t seem to fathom is that when we fail and our ball falls in the gutter, God does not stop loving us. He does not write us off. He is not done with us. He knows us and is not disappointed in us. He already knew what would happen and what we would do, and as any loving father, He encourages us to get right back in there and try again.
Picture God saying this to you when your ball falls in the gutter…
“That’s okay. Try again. Now take a deep breath and this time focus on the marks in front of you. Focus on the goal and following the marks… There you go, much better this time!”
Rules govern by failure. Once broken, guilt is poured out, and we dislike the feeling of guilt so much that we determine not to break the rules again. But guilt is not from God. Guilt is always from the enemy.
The Holy Spirit guides in front, leading us, not pushing us like guilt does. We know that leading. It is a simple and gentle urging. A knowing regarding what to do, before we do it. It is easily overridden. When we sense that leading and then choose an alternate path, that leading goes away. We feel a disappointment and a knowing that we should have followed the leading.
Practice it. Pray and ask the Holy Spirit to lead you, and then recognize that innermost leading. It is peaceful and calm. Follow it. Practice it. It may take time, but it is worth it.
With practice, you'll live that way every day. You will hit your goal with power and precision, and your joy will be full.
This study is a culmination of this week’s Monday Meditation and the Wednesday Word Study. By drilling down on specific scriptures and then specific words, we can begin to gain a better understanding of the Word of God and therefore apply it to our lives more accurately. The Friday Finally episodes take both the Monday Meditation and Wednesday Word Study and pull them together for an overall teaching to equip and train us for a more Godly and beneficial life.
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Wednesday Word Study | Law – Episode 13
