“Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” -1 Peter 2:11-12

It’s opening day for baseball season and my Facebook and Twitter feed are all a buzz with people cheering on their perspective teams. The season only finished 5 months ago yet a lot of people were ready and anxious for it to start again. I think about these players that have committed their lives to the game of baseball and wonder how many hours they have put in over the course of their career. If you totaled it all up I’m sure that you would find out that they have spent years playing this game they love, or at least are good at. You also think about all of the injuries and, while more prevalent in football, someone’s season or career can be over in an instant. Even if they make it an entire career, what happens when they are too old to play at a competitive level? A lot of players don’t know what to do because they get caught in this idea of baseball or other sports. They forget that these are just temporary things. There comes a time when they either won’t matter anymore or we won’t care about them anymore. Unfortunately we can say the same about a lot of other things in our lives.

We seem to get caught up in the temporary things really easily. Our favorite sports team, the new “in” fashion, the latest video games, and the list goes on. We all have our own temporary pitfalls if you will. What makes them so attractive? How important are those things in the long run? Thankfully scripture reminds us of something more permanent. We are reminded in 1 Peter that we are to act as strangers or aliens on this planet we call earth because it is not our permanent home. It is only a temporary place for us to be until Christ comes to take us home eternally with Him. The other thing scripture reminds us of is that we have been forgiven for our “temporary” lapses in judgment called sins. Christ has permanently erased them from the record book so that we can have that home with Him forever. Our names have been added to the book of life with the most permanent ink we could ever think of. Christ’s blood. Our temporary covered by His permanent.  

“Don’t make a permanent decision for a temporary emotion.” -Unknown