My greatest problem with golf is ME, and I am also my greatest solution. But if I am unable to admit that I am my problem with golf, then becoming a better golfer will be no more than an illusion.
As I play golf with many golfers, I see them playing the same game, day after day, with little or no improvement. I see them playing the same game, month after month and year after year, with little or no improvement. They buy new golf balls, new golf shoes, and new golf clothes, but they keep coming back to the same game they played yesterday. They buy new golf carts, but their game rarely improves---as if their game today is no more than a continuation of the same game they played yesterday.
Why do people invest hundreds and thousands of dollars to play a sport with little or no improvement? They keep coming back, believing that they will get better as long as they keep playing, as long as they keep swinging clubs, but improvement is barely noticeable from year to year. Yet many people are content to play golf this way for five, ten, fifteen, and thirty years, or even longer.
Why?
Do they not have anything better to do with their time? Or with their money?
Becoming a better golfer is in the golfer, but the golfer is unable to get the better golfer out of himself because he lacks the knowledge of golf; and because he is too proud to ask for help, or too proud to see a golf doctor, he plays the same game with the same illusion that he will improve his game with the same knowledge he applied yesterday, last week, last month, and all across thirty years. So at the end of thirty years, he is not much better than he was after his first five seasons.
If I did not believe that I could become a better golfer, I would quit. I would invest my money and my time in something that would be progressively better---and much more fun---than playing the same song on a jukebox for thirty years!
In like manner, many people are as devoutly devoted to their churches and to their religious institutions, as they are to golf, but they play the same song on a jukebox throughout their lives on earth. Like golfers, they buy new church clothes and new cars to take them to their places of worship, but their lives never change. They celebrate Christmas and Easter, they celebrate holidays and holy days and participate in all the festivities, but they never talk about the Lord.
People of religion never tell me how wonderful their religion is for themselves and for their children. It is as if their religion is a secret and people on the outside are not entitled to know what they know in their religion. They keep it to themselves, never sharing their wonderful religion with others. It is as if I am in the wrong bloodline to have the religion that they believe is so wonderful for themselves and for their families---or as if I am not good enough to be a member of their Ecclesiastical Country Club where membership is BY INVITATION ONLY.
To people of religion, is heaven no more than an illusion? They talk about going to heaven, but they never talk about God in heaven, or Christ in heaven.
A golfer's game is a work of his own hands, and improvement is no more than an illusion as long as he keeps working his hands the same way.
In like manner, is heaven no more than a work in the imaginations of people? If so, then heaven will be no more than the heaven they have imagined heaven to be: for heaven will be no more than a continuation of their lives on earth. As people do as they please in this life, then they will believe that they will do as they please in heaven: that they will do in heaven just as they did while living on earth, while getting to sit in the High Chair next to God!
If a golfer never repents, in that he is unwilling to admit that he is the problem with his game, he will never change his ways. And if people are unwilling to repent to God, in that they are unwilling to admit that they are the problem, they will never change their ways. So then, the golfer and the sinner will keep playing the same song on the jukebox, living in the same illusion that they can do all things by themselves because they believe they are perfect in all their ways, and that they do not need a golf doctor or God in heaven to fix their pains!
By this method of self-inflicted mind control, the golfer remains an average hacker, and the sinner remains a sinner: for both are fixated on themselves, in all of their pride and glory, for they believe that the spotlight in on themselves: and it thrills them to think that others are in their lives to watch them!
Until a golfer humbles himself to golf, he will never become a better golfer, and playing better golf will always be an illusion because he keeps believing that his way is the right way, when, in fact, his way is the wrong way.
Until a sinner humbles himself to God, he will never experience the salvation of Christ through faith and by the grace of God, because he keeps believing that his way is the right way, when, in fact, his way is the wrong way.
So then, the golfer and the sinner deceive themselves by their own illusions.
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2: 8-9)
When a golfer lacks the knowledge of golf, playing better golf will never be more than an illusion in his own imagination.
And when a sinner lacks the knowledge of Christ, heaven will never be more than an illusion in his own imagination.
The golfer will keep working to get better, but getting better will never happen: while the sinner will keep working to earn his way to heaven without Christ, which will never happen.
If I accept the knowledge of a beginning golfer, then my game will never be more than the game of a beginning golfer: and becoming a better golfer will always be an illusion.
If I accept the knowledge of religion, then my life will never be more than the knowledge of that religion: and getting to heaven will always be an illusion.
The name of a golfer will never give me a better golf game, and the name of a religion will never give me salvation and a passage to heaven, for only the name of Christ can do that:
for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. (Acts 4: 12)
As I play golf with many golfers, I see them playing the same game, day after day, with little or no improvement. I see them playing the same game, month after month and year after year, with little or no improvement. They buy new golf balls, new golf shoes, and new golf clothes, but they keep coming back to the same game they played yesterday. They buy new golf carts, but their game rarely improves---as if their game today is no more than a continuation of the same game they played yesterday.
Why do people invest hundreds and thousands of dollars to play a sport with little or no improvement? They keep coming back, believing that they will get better as long as they keep playing, as long as they keep swinging clubs, but improvement is barely noticeable from year to year. Yet many people are content to play golf this way for five, ten, fifteen, and thirty years, or even longer.
Why?
Do they not have anything better to do with their time? Or with their money?
Becoming a better golfer is in the golfer, but the golfer is unable to get the better golfer out of himself because he lacks the knowledge of golf; and because he is too proud to ask for help, or too proud to see a golf doctor, he plays the same game with the same illusion that he will improve his game with the same knowledge he applied yesterday, last week, last month, and all across thirty years. So at the end of thirty years, he is not much better than he was after his first five seasons.
If I did not believe that I could become a better golfer, I would quit. I would invest my money and my time in something that would be progressively better---and much more fun---than playing the same song on a jukebox for thirty years!
In like manner, many people are as devoutly devoted to their churches and to their religious institutions, as they are to golf, but they play the same song on a jukebox throughout their lives on earth. Like golfers, they buy new church clothes and new cars to take them to their places of worship, but their lives never change. They celebrate Christmas and Easter, they celebrate holidays and holy days and participate in all the festivities, but they never talk about the Lord.
People of religion never tell me how wonderful their religion is for themselves and for their children. It is as if their religion is a secret and people on the outside are not entitled to know what they know in their religion. They keep it to themselves, never sharing their wonderful religion with others. It is as if I am in the wrong bloodline to have the religion that they believe is so wonderful for themselves and for their families---or as if I am not good enough to be a member of their Ecclesiastical Country Club where membership is BY INVITATION ONLY.
To people of religion, is heaven no more than an illusion? They talk about going to heaven, but they never talk about God in heaven, or Christ in heaven.
A golfer's game is a work of his own hands, and improvement is no more than an illusion as long as he keeps working his hands the same way.
In like manner, is heaven no more than a work in the imaginations of people? If so, then heaven will be no more than the heaven they have imagined heaven to be: for heaven will be no more than a continuation of their lives on earth. As people do as they please in this life, then they will believe that they will do as they please in heaven: that they will do in heaven just as they did while living on earth, while getting to sit in the High Chair next to God!
If a golfer never repents, in that he is unwilling to admit that he is the problem with his game, he will never change his ways. And if people are unwilling to repent to God, in that they are unwilling to admit that they are the problem, they will never change their ways. So then, the golfer and the sinner will keep playing the same song on the jukebox, living in the same illusion that they can do all things by themselves because they believe they are perfect in all their ways, and that they do not need a golf doctor or God in heaven to fix their pains!
By this method of self-inflicted mind control, the golfer remains an average hacker, and the sinner remains a sinner: for both are fixated on themselves, in all of their pride and glory, for they believe that the spotlight in on themselves: and it thrills them to think that others are in their lives to watch them!
Until a golfer humbles himself to golf, he will never become a better golfer, and playing better golf will always be an illusion because he keeps believing that his way is the right way, when, in fact, his way is the wrong way.
Until a sinner humbles himself to God, he will never experience the salvation of Christ through faith and by the grace of God, because he keeps believing that his way is the right way, when, in fact, his way is the wrong way.
So then, the golfer and the sinner deceive themselves by their own illusions.
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2: 8-9)
When a golfer lacks the knowledge of golf, playing better golf will never be more than an illusion in his own imagination.
And when a sinner lacks the knowledge of Christ, heaven will never be more than an illusion in his own imagination.
The golfer will keep working to get better, but getting better will never happen: while the sinner will keep working to earn his way to heaven without Christ, which will never happen.
If I accept the knowledge of a beginning golfer, then my game will never be more than the game of a beginning golfer: and becoming a better golfer will always be an illusion.
If I accept the knowledge of religion, then my life will never be more than the knowledge of that religion: and getting to heaven will always be an illusion.
The name of a golfer will never give me a better golf game, and the name of a religion will never give me salvation and a passage to heaven, for only the name of Christ can do that:
for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. (Acts 4: 12)
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