God's Tough Love

A mechanic accidentally swallowed some brake fluid and really liked the taste. Before he knew it, he had finished off the whole bottle.

One of his co-workers caught him sneaking a swig the next day. “Man, that stuff will kill you,” said his friend, “you've got to give it up.”

“Don't worry,” the mechanic responded, “I can stop anytime I want.” (Van Morris, Mt. Washington, Kentucky; www.PreachingToday.com)

Don’t you wish giving up a bad habit was that easy? But it isn’t! A lot of people say, “I can stop anytime I want,” but they never do! Our battle against sin is a struggle. Our fight for spiritual maturity is agony sometimes. So how do you deal with the agony? How do you handle the struggle so as to move past the sin and become all that God created you to be? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Hebrews 12, Hebrews 12, where the Bible talks about our struggle against sin and how to grow to full spiritual maturity.

Hebrews 12:4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. (ESV)

In other words, don’t stop now! Keep on resisting to the point of blood, i.e., until the day you die.

AGONIZE UNTIL YOU EXPERIENCE THE LIMIT OF DISCIPLINE.

Soldier on in your fight against sin. Stay in the battle until the day God takes you home to glory.

I like the way Billy Sunday put it years ago: He said, “Listen, I'm against sin. I'll kick it as long as I've got a foot. I'll fight it as long as I've got a fist. I'll butt it as long as I've got a head. And I'll bite it as long as I've got a tooth. And when I'm old, fistless, footless and toothless, I'll gum it till I go home to glory and it goes home to perdition." (Billy Sunday, evangelist of 1900s, www.PreachingToday.com)

Never give up in your fight against sin! Keep on resisting it until you come to the end of your life’s race. Don’t think that you can just coast to the end and do well. In fact, towards the end, you must fight your hardest.

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins writes:

The coaching staff of a high school cross-country running team got together for dinner after winning its second state championship in two years. The program had been transformed in the previous five years from good (top 20 in the state) to great (consistent contenders for the state championship on both the boys' and girls' teams).

“I don't get it,” said one of the coaches. “Why are we so successful? We don't work any harder than other teams. And what we do is just so simple. Why does it work?”

He was referring to their simple strategy: We run best at the end. We run best at the end of workouts. We run best at the end of races. And we run best at the end of the season, when it counts the most. Everything is geared to this simple idea, and the coaching staff knows how to create this effect better than any other team in the state.

For example, they place a coach at the 2-mile mark (of a 3.1-mile race) to collect data as the runners go past. Then the coaches calculate NOT how fast the runners go, but how many competitors they pass at the end of the race, from mile two to the finish.

The kids learn how to pace themselves and race with confidence: “We run best at the end,” they think at the end of a hard race. “So, if I'm hurting bad, then my competitors must hurt a whole lot worse!” (Jim Collins, Good To Great, Harper Business, 2001, p. 206; www.PreachingToday.com)

Run your best at the end! That’s the way to move past the sin in your life and become all that God created you to be. In your struggle against sin, keep on resisting until the day you die.

That’s what Gordon McDonald discovered he had to do when he fell into sin. He is a pastor in New England with a world-wide influence; but several years ago, he was caught in an affair. Instead of remaining vigilant against sin, he dropped his guard and found himself in bed with a woman who was not his wife. It was the one sin to which he never expected to succumb.

That’s when a lifelong mentor came to live with Gordon and his wife for a week. Gordon McDonald said, “In our worst moments of shame and humiliation, he… helped us do a searing examination of our lives.” Gordon said, “We will always remember his words: ‘You are both momentarily in a great darkness. You have a choice to make. You can—as do so many—deny this terrible pain, or blame it on others, or run away from it. Or, you can embrace this pain together and let it do its purifying work as you hear the things God means to whisper into your hearts during the process. If you choose the latter, I expect you will have an adventurous future modeling what true repentance and grace is all about.’” (Gordon McDonald, Leadership journal's weekly newsletter, 5-13-08; www.PreachingToday.com)