The 2024 NFL regular season officially kicked off last night, and it took no time for us to get our first dramatic finish.
Trailing by seven points with less than two minutes remaining, Baltimore’s offense drove 77 yards to set itself up with three opportunities to score a potential game-tying touchdown from the Kansas City 10-yard line.
After incompletions on the first two downs, the Ravens appeared to have scored their needed touchdown as time expired. With the clock registering all zeroes, Lamar Jackson found tight end Isaiah Likely in the back of the endzone, with the nearest referee raising his hands to signify a scoring touchdown.
Upon further review, however, a tiny sliver of Likely’s foot coming down out-of-bounds caused the touchdown to be overturned to an incompletion, giving the Chiefs the 27-20 season-opening win.
People often say, “Football is a game of inches,” which was clearly the case last night. In addition to the dramatic final play, Baltimore was penalized on five occasions for having an offensive lineman line up too far off the football. Once again, those penalties were all decided by a matter of inches.
It is remarkable to think about how much of an impact a seemingly small distance, such as an inch, can have on the entire outcome of a football contest. But things that seem small and insignificant are often the very things that lead to a team’s defeat.
As followers of Jesus, we all engage in a constant battle against sin. No matter how long we have been Christians, we all struggle with always living a life of holiness and obedience to God.
And just as in football, things that start as seemingly small and inconsequential usually lead us to defeat in our daily battle against sin.
James 1:14-15 (ESV) says, “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”
Notice the progression that often occurs with sin. It starts as a desire within us, but without appropriately and aggressively dealing with it, it rapidly grows and takes up more space in our lives.
When we have stray thoughts or sinful impulses, we dismiss them as insignificant because we think we won’t act upon them. But when we don’t deal swiftly with sin when it begins to manifest, we are creating room for that “inch” to become the catalyst that drives us to ultimate defeat in our striving for obedience.
Galatians 5:9 (NKJV) succinctly states, “A little leaven leavens the whole lump.”
Despite this verse initially being used in the context of false teaching, it is a principle that holds truth for many areas of our lives. The more we allow small sinful desires to occur in our hearts, the more we will start seeing our entire lives impacted by sin.
Rather than dismissing the seemingly small roots of sin as inconsequential or unimportant, we should be people who quickly and passionately take action to fight against the first sign that we have a sinful thought or desire.
Today, let’s not allow the “inches” of sin in our lives to cause us to lose in our battle for holiness. Instead, let’s aggressively deal with sin as soon as we see the first signs of it becoming an issue so that, by God’s grace and power, we might live a life that is pleasing to Him.
I’m Matt Osborne, and you can UNPACK that!
PRAYER: Heavenly Father, please help me not be complacent or indifferent about sin. Help me to recognize sin as soon as it pops up in my life, and give me strength to walk in obedience to the power of Your Spirit. In Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen.
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