I don’t usually watch golf on TV with two exceptions:  the U.S. Open and The Masters, two of the sport’s four “major” tournaments.

I enjoy both but the latter is a slight favorite since it occurs right around Resurrection Sunday (Easter) each Spring, and occurs first of the four, a fitting “kick-off” to the serious golf season.

After a couple-hour rain delay, this year’s Masters finally got going and it has been a great first round so far and while watching (wistfully… I could never play like those pros) my mind immediately meditated on this tournament’s title and it got me thinking of four main matters or motives or aspects of life which may become more important than they should, which may become “masters” of far too many minds and lives:

• Pride
• “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before stumbling.  It is better to be of a humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud.” (Proverbs 16:18-19)
• “Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled” (Matthew 23:12a)
• Power
• “ALL authority has been given to Me” [i.e., NOT thee!] (Matthew 28:18b)
• “For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.  Amen.” [i.e., power is Thine, NOT mine!] ()
• “He who is the blessed and ONLY Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords” (1 Timothy 6:15b)
• Profit
• “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36)
• “No one can serve two masters [i.e., ding ding ding]; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and mammon [i.e., money, wealth].” (Matthew 6:24)
• “Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy.  Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed.” (1 Timothy 6:17-19)
• Pleasure
• “For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to [i.e., mastered by] various lusts and ” (Titus 3:3a)

But did you know that roughly two thousand years ago  the Bible PREDICTED that people would fall prey to these “4 P’s”?  And all four in the very same passage:

• “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.  For men will be lovers of self [i.e., power!], lovers of money [i.e., profit!], boastful [i.e., pride!], arrogant [i.e., pride!], revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited [i.e., pride!], lovers of pleasure [pleasure!] rather than lovers of God…” (2 Timothy 3:1-4)

So for those of you who, like me, will be watching much of The Masters golf major over these next few days, may we wisely examine ourselves, our minds, our lives, to ensure that these four masters – or any others! – haven’t and don’t get a grip over us… or as the precious Apostle Paul poignantly put it:

• “I will not be mastered by anything.” (1 Corinthians 6:12d)

To those of you who will be glued to golf these next few days I say…

Enjoy The Masters!

And, even better…

Enjoy the Master.

 

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