Jump Start # 1278

Proverbs 11:1 “A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, But a just weight is His delight.”

  This Sunday is the Super Bowl. The big game, Super Sunday, it’s called. Each year family and friends gather to watch the game. There will be detailed analysis by the experts, review of the season and how each team got there, those special commercials and this year one new element that everyone will be talking about, deflated footballs. Deflate-gate is the term used to describe the controversial under inflated footballs in the Boston-Indy game. Was it on purpose? Was it cheating? Did the weather have an affect? Who’s behind it? Lots of theories. Lots of talk. The final word hasn’t been said at this point.

However, one thing is true, especially in sports, the drive to win is so intense that cheating has always been a problem. In baseball, it was pine tar on bats, steroids, and spitballs. In boxing, it was foreign objects inside the boxing glove. In horse racing, it was finding ways to shave weight off to make the horse and rider lighter. There’s been cheating in nearly every sport. We witnessed this even on the high school level. One of my boys ran cross country. One private school they ran against had a ton of runners. They get their fastest out ahead and then have a line of others that would block the narrow path so no one could go around. Cheating.

Cheating has been a problem in finance, business, sales, school tests for a long, long time.

Our verse, deep into the Old Testament, tells us that cheating was a problem back then. A false balance was a form of dishonesty and cheating. The balance was used to weigh things. Products didn’t come prepackaged as they do today, so they would be weighed. It would be assumed that a pound is a pound, unless the merchant messed with the scales and you purchased less than a pound but paid the full pound price. The buyer got cheated and the merchant profited. It would be hard to know, unless another scale was brought in and a comparison was made. God knew. God knew full well what was going on.

There are two sides to cheating.

First, the one who gets cheated, feels violated. He’s been ripped off. He’s paid more than he should have. He has a sick feeling about the deal. He will tell others about this bad experience and word of mouth will hurt future sales.

Second, the cheater thinks he is slick. He doesn’t really care about his customer. He’s only interested in profits. He takes advantage of someone and is only thinking of self. There are many areas that cheating would disturb us. For instance, to know that your surgeon cheated in medical school is not a comforting thought. Does he really know his stuff? To know that a pilot cheated in flight school is very disturbing. The cheater always fears getting caught. Often they do. We see them on the nightly news, being led away in handcuffs. Trusted people taking money that doesn’t belong to them for personal use. Sadly, this happens even in the church. There has been stories of those who count the contribution, stealing and of treasurers playing with numbers so they don’t get caught emblemizing.

The atmosphere of cheating begins at home and at a young age. Parents need to drive the point of honesty more than winning. When caught trying to cheat, the youngster needs to be punished. Rewarding wrong behavior only encourages more of that.

But the spirit of honesty must first prevail through our lives, words and actions. Money is not more important than character. One cannot love his neighbor and then take advantage of him by being dishonest. The truth often hurts. The truth can cost. But this is where it must begin. When selling things, be honest. When at work, be honest. Be honest in your words. Be honest with your promises. Be honest with your commitment.

It’s hard for honest people to compete with cheaters. Cheaters have their own rules. They have their own standards. They expect everyone else to be honest, except them. When someone cheats a cheater, they get real upset. Hard to understand why? It’s ok for the cheater to cheat, but not for someone else to cheat them? Very odd.

We are heading into tax season. Cheaters come out of the woodwork when it’s about taxes. No one wants to pay taxes. The cheater tries to find ways to keep from paying. Zaccheus was a cheater. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. Most tax collectors back then added a fee to the taxes they collected. The fee was their salary. The taxes collected went to Rome, the fee they kept. Some were very dishonest. The best, rose to the top. Zaccheus was at the top. He met the honest Savior. He had heard about Jesus. He wanted to see Jesus. This Jesus was different than most Jews. Most hated tax collectors. They worked for Rome, the enemy. However, Jesus had been to the homes of tax collectors. More than that, Jesus had chosen a tax collector to be one of his apostles. This man was different. He not only saw Jesus, but the Lord knew him and called him by name. They had a brief conversation and Jesus invited Himself to the tax collectors home. This is when honesty hit Zaccheus. He promised to do right. He promised to make things right. His cheating ways were over. He had a character change. What he proposed to do would send a message through the tax collecting world. He was upsetting the system. He was going honest.

We all need to do that. Honest with who we are. Honest in our prayers. Honest to out mates. Honest in our hearts. The honest Savior meets you. Will it change your character?

It should.

Roger