In the sports world rookies and newer players have to work doubly hard if they expect to excel. If a player is a veteran, that is, he has been around for awhile, he has earned the right to be there–so to speak. He has a track record. He may even enjoy certain privileges that younger players do not enjoy.
This may be the reality of the sports world and even work well; however, when it comes to the spiritual life, it cannot and does not apply.
I will highlight two particular areas: devotional life and dealing with sin.
(1) Devotions: As Christians we need to come and eat the fresh manna every day. We need to be daily supplied and nourished by the Word of God. The dangerous, and all to common tendency, is to act like a spiritual veteran. This is the guy (or girl) who can coast a bit in their Bible reading because they put in that hard work early on. They learned a lot of key doctrines, read through the Bible, and the gave themselves to prayer and other spiritual disciplines–but now, they are in a season of coasting. They have earned it.
This is utterly dangerous.
Our hearts are not neutral. Just like the soil in a field (or garden) when it is freshly tilled it does not stay fresh. As soon as you pull your tool out of the ground it begins to stiffen, to harden. The same is true with our hearts. We cannot read our Bibles, pray, and meditate on the Scriptures and then apply some type of spiritual Saran Wrap over our hearts. It is the natural tendency of the sinful heart to begin to go stale. Therefore, we cannot become complacent. We must regularly bring the Word to bear on our own hearts and bow ourselves before Christ in prayer to break up the fallow ground of our hearts. We are never veterans here. There are no “easier” days coming. It is always about farming the soil of our hearts. We must attack this like a rookie in view of success.
(2) Mortification: This word simply means, “putting to death.” More specifically, I am talking about putting sin to death. As Christians we are always about dealing with our own sin. We must be actively surveying our hearts inclinations, longings, mournings, and attachments.
It is pretty obvious that we need to repent of “clear” sins. We know yelling at someone or gossipping or lying is wrong. But, what about the simmering jealousy that quietly boils under the lid of your heart? What about the constant longings for the newest technologies? What about the “innocent” fantasies about how you would run your life if you were the sovereign? What about the quiet muttering in your mind as you are angry about various current trials? What about your inclinations to only give time to people who are just like you? These are just examples of our heart steering our lives rather than us steering our hearts. The Proverb tells us to steer (keep/guard) our hearts not to let our hearts steer us (Prov. 4.23).
If your approach to dealing with sin is like a veteran, “I don’t have to do that anymore, it is just for spiritual rookies…” then you are in trouble. It is like the growing a pet alligator in your house. Sure it is novel and interesting when it is a baby, but soon enough, that sucker is going to be full-grown and it is going to take your head off. So too with sin. You may think it is sweet and innocent in it’s infancy, however, sin is never docile and it never seeks to do anything but kill (James 1.14-15). Therefore, as (I believe) John Owen has wonderfully said, “Be killing sin or it will be killing you.”
There are plenty of other areas to look at in the Christian life, these are just two. I think the exhortation is clear enough: you never earn the right to take a day off. Furthermore, you can’t. When you do, you are setting out on a disastrous trajectory with consequences far worse than any game can bring.