“Mom, she’s cheating!” My sister used to yell that every time we played a game. Even when I wasn’t cheating she insisted to my mother that I was.
If at first you don't succeed, fry, fry a hen! J What? Is that not how it goes? Isn't that how people do things now? They make up the rules according to their preference as they go along. At least that’s how my sister and I did it when we played Monopoly. The way we played if you were in jail, you could not collect money if someone landed on your property. According to the game rules, "Even though you are in jail, you may buy and sell property, buy and sell houses and collect rent." We changed the rules all the time to accommodate our game, the way we wanted it.
Isn’t that how we do the Bible, we create a god that works for us: a loving god that would not cause pain, hurt or sorrow? It is easy to forget the rules of a board game and to play it by the rules someone else tells you is right. You trust them to know how to play and soon you pass those rules on to someone else and on and on it goes. Pretty soon, the real rules aren't being played anymore. Isn’t that a lot of what happens with what people think they believe about the Bible?
Oh, so Sorry, my bad, you weren’t planning on reading a sermon. I won’t preach about Life but if you don’t get a Clue and Go Fish you might find out on Payday whether you played the game according to His rules or your own rules. This is not just a Candy Land where you can travel through Chutes and Ladders without any Trouble – don’t mean to burst your bubble. I’m not talking in Crazy 8’s here; I’m truly concerned for your salvation. I would hate to see you get dealt a hand full of Spades. Move forward three and go back two, Parcheesi rules when I land on you.
Chinese Checkers made me lose my marbles a long time ago but when I won the game of Chess I found who my true King was. I read His book and try every day to adhere to His rules. Oh, don’t get me wrong, sometimes I fail and sometimes I am still making up my own rules, but in the end, His rules overrule and I am humbled when I lose that one game of Bad Gammon and then I go back and review the right rules again.
We don’t get to make up the rules as we go along, and we don’t get to pick and choose the ones we like or the ones we don’t like.