What would you do?

Even if you are not a cycling fan you are likely to know the name Lance Armstrong. His name has been all over the news this week as revelation and accusation about drug taking in cycling has gone from one unbelievable level to the next. But not everyone in cycling was taking performance-enhancing drugs.

Many of those who did spoke about their initial shock at the scale of what was going on and a determination not to get involved. But pressure from team mates, conversations with team doctors, and the frustration of getting beaten by people who you knew were not as good as you led many to take the wrong fork in the road. One cyclist talked about this turn coming for many after about 1000 days - 1000 days of resistance and saying 'no' - but in the end it was just too much.

But one cyclist from that era stands out - Christophe Bassons. He did not take drugs and he spoke out against drugs in cycling and he paid the price. 

He talks about being offered a contract: stay clean and sign a deal for about 4,000 euros a year; take EPO and sign the deal for about 47,000 euros. What would you do? Many took the second option, but not Bassons. Shunned by team mates and criticised by those we now know were taking drugs Bassons eventually retired from cycling. He paid a price for doing the right thing.

Armstrong won the Tour de France seven times. Bassons was hounded out of cycling.

In an interview with the Observer Bassons reflects and said: 

I don't feel bitter at all. I think if you were to compare the situations today of both Lance Armstrong and myself you might ask who is the happiest, who is the most content, who feels the best about themselves and what they did? I certainly don't have any regrets...Lance Armstrong cannot be feeling very comfortable today.

Life is all about choices. We face choices every single day. Many of them are routine with insignificant consequences - whether to have Sugar Puffs or Cornflakes for breakfast - but every now and again we come across a major fork in the road. Sometimes we know it's coming, and we have time to prepare for it - exploring different career options, for example. But other times we are hit with a situation out of the blue and we have to react on the spot. What do we do? 

Part of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus is that we seek to be obedient to God in every decision we take. This means developing a Christian character so that when we are faced with that on the spot decision we are more likely to do the right thing than do the wrong thing. Being a disciple of Jesus means that we realise that there will be a cost involved - doing the right thing means that often the easy options are not available.

Putting the cart before the horse

It has been said that we are human beings and not human doings - making the point that who we are is more important than what we do. And whilst this is of course true we can't separate who we are from what we do. The Bible tells us that we will know what is inside people by the 'fruit' that we see on the outside.

But we need to be careful that we get these things the right way round. We don't do the outward stuff in order to change what is going on on the inside. No. It is the things that are going on on in the inside that will affect the way things are on the outside. God is always more interested on the inside - if that's not right then the outward stuff counts for nothing.

And so when it comes to thinking about offerings and sacrifices (as we were last time - see last post) the things that we offer to God must always be our response to everything that God has already done for us. We don't 'do things for God' in order to earn his love or forgiveness or because of a guilty conscience. Sin has already been dealt with by Jesus' death on the cross. The only offerings left available to us are those voluntary offerings that are offered as worship in response to God's love for us.

So what kind of things do we offer? Not animal sacrifices. Romans 12:1 talks about offering our whole lives as a living sacrifice. The answer then is 'everything'. In line with Leviticus 1-7  - some of the offerings were offered to God alone, and these were burnt up, some were partly offered to God and partly to the priests, some were for God, the priest and the offerer.

So it is right that some of our time and some of our resources are sacrificially given over to God - e.g. giving up 3 hours a week to help out at a church run community toddler group, or regularly giving a percentage of your income to the local church and other charities. But we should also see all the stuff that we keep for ourselves as being an offering to God and use it wisely in ways that will bring glory to Him.

A bit more later...

It won't come out of the carpet

It's not always easy to see the significance of what we read in the Bible. As I've said before, one of the most important questions you can ask as you read the Bible is 'so what?' If it's not going to make any difference to the way I live my life, then what's the point?

As we continue our Sunday morning series on the book of Leviticus this question remains very much at the front of my mind. These passages are, on first glance, so out of date and from a totally different age, what can they possible have to say to us today?

This week we were looking at Leviticus 1-7 which deals with the rules and regulations of what and how to offer sacrifices that are acceptable to God. Should you offer a goat, sheep, bird or cow? Should it be male or female? Do you burn the whole thing or offer some and eat the rest? What do you do with the blood? Pour it out, sprinkle it around, wipe it on the horns of the altar, take it inside the tabernacle?

None of the above is going to make you very popular when you go to church on Sunday. In fact it is unlikely that your animal of choice will make it through the front door. But even if you do get your pet goat to the front of the church it is unlikely that any minister or vicar is going to slaughter the thing in front of the children in the pews - the blood would almost certainly ruin the carpet - and no one wants a visit from the fabric committee. So what is the point?

In the New Testament we read that these things were only ever a shadow of the real thing. When Jesus died on the cross that sacrifice dealt with the problem of sin once and for all. Everything that we then seek to do is our response to God's love, grace, mercy and forgiveness. In the words of Romans 12:1 we present ourselves to God as a living sacrifice - no longer looking to do what we want, but looking to be obedient to God.

I'll have some more thoughts on our offerings later in the week.

Jump Highlights

Just in case you missed Felix's jump from 24 miles above the earth that I was talking about in my last post here are the video highlights.