Thinking Wise, Acting Foolish
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools…
—Romans 1:18-22
Before going to church yesterday morning, I already planned to write something on this section of Romans 1 for today’s post. It was interesting how this passage was also one of the few our pastor chose for the sermon. This passage goes on to talk about all the deplorable things we think are okay, but God despises. It also says how God gives us over to our dishonorable passions. That’s important stuff to consider, especially as we see our world living it out before us. However, after the sermon, I decided to change course a little. Let’s go big picture on something we also covered in the sermon. Let’s talk about permanent life and death!
We are actually going through Ephesians and in observation of the first few verses of Ephesians 2, our pastor reminded us of the following — On earth, life precedes permanent death. In God’s kingdom, death precedes permanent life. Think about that for a second. Reality as far as God is concerned (which ultimately matters a whole lot more than what we think) is exactly opposite from what we tend to believe is the order of things. I almost titled this post “Death Before Life” to drive this point home, but I wanted to focus on what fools we are instead! Without God, we have things completely backwards and we’re over here thinking we got it all figured out. I’m talking to professing Christians here too. If someone said to you, “Life comes before death,” what would your response be? Without thinking in this context, you may say “Duh!” Perhaps neither you or the person asking would blink at this response. However, you would be confirming something that is actually false. How often do we do that? How much does having a mindset not in line with God’s affect us?
Well, how about an easy illustration using something that has been the topic of the day for 2+ years now. Groundhog Day has nothing on the ‘Rona Rage’. I’m not trying to downplay it at all, and if you lost a loved one to the virus the 1% will seem much bigger, but it is a virus that has over a 99% survival rate. That’s a rate that would be even higher if we actually allowed early treatment and the “wise” didn’t become complete fools. I’m not going to go off on that tangent right now though. I want you to think about not only how you faced AC (After Corona) times, but also all the different ways you watched everyone else react to this virus. Did we not completely change everything about how our society functions? Almost everyone’s life changed in some significant way whether we wanted to or not. That’s pretty incredible. Less than a 1% chance of death if you got this virus and we became super-focused on how we would deal with our over 99% chance of survival. Now, consider the following: Without God we have a 100% chance of permanent death! That’s a 0% chance of survival! You would think, if we were actually as wise as we think we are, that would warrant AT LEAST a 99-100 times greater response from us. With Covid, we have tons of options in the form of treatments and even so-called ‘vaccines’ to deal with a very survivable virus. With our looming permanent deaths, we have ZERO options at our disposable without God. That’s the key — “without God”. With God, we have ONE option through Jesus! Yet, there are “wise” people among us that when presented with this reality from God will simply say, “I’m good.” Yeah? You’re all set? Well, you may be “all set” but not in the way you think. In fact, I’m getting hot just thinking about the way you’re “all set” if you stick with that “wisdom”. Let me be clear, that’s foolish! You have no concept of how dead you are outside of Christ, and if you did (and cared), your response should be the equivalent of our society’s response to Covid on every steroid of the MLB steroid era combined! Even as Christians we often forget how dead we were. We can live like fools too. We say we believe we are alive in Christ and then be like I’m going to live out my Walking Dead fantasies right now. Seriously, we are idiots! That’s why, regardless of where we are at with Christ, we need to let God transform our ‘Thinking Wise, Acting Foolish’ mindset for a more humble ‘I’m An Idiot, Help Me Be Wise’ mindset.
I’ll close with a borrowed analogy from our pastor about being on the right or wrong side of the tennis net. When I ultimately came to accept Christ, this is something I came to terms with in that moment. If one side is life and the other is death, I have nothing to stand on and it’s likely I’m on the wrong side. I admitted to myself and God (who probably had the biggest ‘Duh!’ ever in that moment) that I was on the wrong side. Key word “was”. That is the wisest admission I’ve ever made, because now I’m on the right side of the net. God bringing me to a place where I could know and do that instantly gave me permanent life. That can be you too. Being a fool can seem fun for a time, especially when you think you’re wise, but it’s no comparison to admitting you are a fool and living in the joy of knowing you have permanent life through Jesus. If you still don’t know that joy, I hope you will find it through Christ. If you do, I hope you will join me in trying to do a better job of living more responsibly and with more gratitude for what God has done for us. Let’s leave that ‘Thinking Wise, Acting Foolish’ life behind. We’ve got permanent life now! Let’s start acting like it! Amen?