Act Like You Have Been There Before

I happen to like the clever touchdown dance. Since the National Football league relaxed its rules the last season there have been some pretty entertaining ones. However, there does seem to be too much over celebrating in football in general. The guy that jumps up and struts when he has made a routine tackle. The player that bows up on a hit when his team is down by twenty. The receiver that acts like making a normal first down is the greatest play in the history of football. It seems a bit juvenile.

Of course, the rebuke you always hear to these antics is “act like you have been there before”. Only a rookie behaves that way. A true experience professional knows how to behave. Instead of making a fool of yourself, behave like you what you want to be not what you are.

Paul uses a similar phrase in Philippians 3:16. “However, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained”. In a section where he is encouraging us to take on an attitude that strives for the future and not the past, he reminds us to live up to a standard not of where we were but of what where we are going. I may not be perfect, but I can hold myself to that higher standard.

Unfortunately, many today take their religion as a get out of jail card rather than a reason to behave better. Like Jude illustrates in the fourth verse of his book, they turn grace into a license to sin rather than a reason to behave. Grace should instruct us to, “deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age”(Titus 2:12), not to do act the fool in sin and expect no repercussions. We should be holding to a higher standard instead of the least common dominator.

Our behavior should be improved because of the forgiveness God has given us not made the worse. Selfish living is living in enmity of the cross, not in adoration of it. Our celebration should be about us but about what God has done for us.

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