To Do Great Things …

Microsoft’s has recently been running a series of commercials advertising their updated larger tablet, the Surface Pro. I don’t really pay attention to commercials—thankfully I can usually fast-forward through them. But watching more playoff football lately, I have seen their commercial too many times: and I finally paid a little attention to what they said: “To do great things, sometimes you gotta break the rules.”

What? One initial thought I had was: “What great things have they done by breaking the rules?” Another was: “What great things have they done at all?” Maybe I kid, maybe not.

I guess if you don’t think about it, then what they’re saying makes perfect sense … Actually, it makes no sense at all. I presume Microsoft is trying to seem “hip,” but it seems to me that they are missing the target completely.

The main point to me is that if we really want to do great things — like making it to heaven forever — then we won’t accomplish that by breaking the rules, but rather, by keeping them:

• 1 John 2:3–6  By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.
• 1 John 3:22, 24  … Whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight. … The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.
• 1 John 5:3  For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.

Jesus taught that there’s a vast difference between those who do what He commands and those who don’t:

Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. “The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell — and great was its fall (Matthew 7:24–27).

Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does (James 1:21–25).

God wants us to know His will and do His will. As the Lord said to His apostles: “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. … You are My friends if you do what I command you” (John 14:15; 15:14).

To do great things, sometimes you gotta keep the rules!