God's card game

All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.  Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.  Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.  To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen (1 Peter 5:5-11).

When I was little, many people believed that card games were sinful.  At best they were a waste of time that could be better spent on other things.  Often times card games were an excuse for people to sit down and trade gossip.  Worst of all was gambling; games like poker could be addictive and ruin someone financially.

I’ve played card games all my life, although I’m no gambler.  And I’m not strongly competitive—I play for fun, although winning is nice.  I know that card games have gotten some people into trouble, especially when cheating is suspected.  But I’m not going to debate the merits of card games.  Instead, I want to examine what card games can teach us about our Savior and ourselves.

When you are dealt five cards that go in numerical order with no breaks, it is called a straight.   This is what God expects of us.  He wants us to be straight, not crooked.  He wants everything to be in the proper order with no gaps or omissions.  God’s law is like a chain; if just one link is missing, the chain has become broken.  James writes (chapter two), whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.  You cannot have a straight if there’s a gap in the sequence of numbers; in the same way, you cannot claim to be a law-abiding Christian if you skip over even one of God’s commands. 

If you are not straight, you are crooked.  Crooked is another word for being a criminal.  A criminal deserves to be punished for breaking the law.  We are all criminals because we have all stepped off from God’s straight path and gone where we should not—this is called trespassing.  Because of our trespasses (our crooked behavior) we have provoked God’s anger and deserve a jail sentence in hell.

People who play cards often gamble; they calculate the odds, put something valuable on the table as a wager, and hope to come out a winner.  We do the same thing with God.  We look at what we have in life, and we aren’t satisfied that we have enough—enough money, enough popularity, enough fun.  So we calculate the odds; we try to figure out how far we can bend God’s rules before we’ll get into trouble.  And then we ante up something valuable—we put at risk our career, our marriage, our reputation, our retirement nest egg.  Most dangerous of all, when we try to push God’s limits we gamble with our very souls. 

What gives us the courage to gamble with God?  We are betting on His loving nature.  We are banking on God’s mercy as David describes it in Psalm 103: The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.  But in our rush to abuse God’s generosity, we forget that Jesus warned do not put the Lord your God to the test (Matthew 4:7). 

To win at gambling, you must be able to bluff.  But God cannot be bluffed.  The Lord knows when you are truly sorry for angering Him and want to be forgiven; He also knows when you’re just blowing smoke.  Paul warns, God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.  The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life (Galatians 6:7-8). 

When we play the game of life, it often seems as if Satan has the winning hand.  He tricks us into making foolish wagers, then snatches away the victory we thought was ours.  Satan is a cunning player; He out-bluffs us every time.  And He has a lot of partners playing with him as well.  Some of them are easy to spot; they make fun of us, they throw fits when they don’t get their way, they use intimidation to get what they want.  But some of the devil’s partners are harder to identify.  They pretend to be your friend until they suddenly betray you.  They say nice things to your face, but gossip about you when you’re out of the room.  They act friendly as long as you are useful to them, but are quick to abandon you when someone better comes along. 

It’s hard to be successful when Satan and his buddies are playing against you.  But many times you become your own worst enemy.  You impulsively up the ante when you should stand pat.  You get nervous and fold when you should have stuck it out a little longer.  You gamble with things that should never be put on the table.  You get distracted and lose your concentration.  So many times in life, you mess up big time and it’s no one’s fault but your own.

Thankfully, you don’t have to play against these card sharks by yourself.  You have three very important people helping you through the card game of life—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  God the Father deals the cards.  Jesus is your partner at the table.  And the Holy Spirit looks over your shoulder and whispers suggestions about strategy.

Card players know that you have to play the hand you’re dealt.  Some hands are better than others.  Some Christians are wealthy, others are not.  Some of God’s people are blessed with wonderful health while others struggle with chronic disease.  Some believers hold positions of great responsibility while others serve in humbler ways.  Some followers of Christ are filled with vigorous faith while others struggle with doubt.  God deals each of us a different hand, but He’s completely fair—He doesn’t deal from the bottom of the deck, nor does He short anyone a card.  God the Father loves us all, and He treats each of us accordingly.

We also have Jesus as our partner.  He is an expert on the rules—after all, His Father wrote them.  He is patient and wise, where we are impulsive and foolish.  He invites us to settle down and follow His lead.  He asks us to trust Him in making the right play at the best possible time.  Sometimes it seems as if the game is going poorly; at such times we wonder if Jesus knows what He is doing.  It’s hard to follow His lead when we don’t know what card He’s going to play next and what He’s holding in reserve. But our Lord simply asks us to trust Him and to follow His lead.

Satan gets on our nerves, saying that we might as well fold because he holds the winning hand.  Thankfully, God’s Spirit is looking over our shoulder at the cards we’re holding.  Sometimes it is unclear how we should proceed—what card does Jesus want us to play?  If we ask for guidance, the Spirit whispers suggestions in our ears.  But it certainly helps to be familiar with all the rules.  Be sure to use game breaks to study the Bible; God’s Word tells us about the players in the game, the rules, and the kind of strategy that makes winning easier.  The better we understand these things, the better the advice that God’s Spirit can offer us.

Of course, we still make bone-headed plays.  We up the ante when we should stand pat.  We fold when we should raise.  We get tricked into tipping our hand.  We get involved in table-talk and accidentally reveal a weakness.  We put at risk things far too precious to ever gamble with.  Then the devil or his partners show their hands and we realize how stupid we have been.

But no card game is won based on a single hand.  Some games last a couple of hours, others can go all night.  So it is with life; some of us only have a few years while others can live and laugh for a century.  Some can have decades of winning hands, then lose it all suddenly at the end.  Others have their ups and downs, experiencing both wins and losses, but never really getting ahead.  In the final analysis, however, the last hand is the most important—it settles once and for all who wins and who loses.  And it is there, at the last hand, that we can lay down our cards with complete confidence, if Jesus is our partner.

You see, Jesus holds the trump card.  The trump card is more powerful than any other card in the game.  When our life comes to an end, that last hand is winner take all.  Either Satan and his partners win, or we win with Jesus.  When we draw our last breath, when the last card is played, Jesus lays down His trump, winning the game for us decisively.  At that moment, Satan has lost—he has no more cards to play.  We walk away from the game free and clear of any debt, because Jesus our partner has swept the table.

What is the trump card that Jesus played?  It is His death on the cross at Calvary, where He died so that we might live.  The blood of Christ is the very power of life over death, of love defeating evil.  Jesus is trump over sin, death, and Satan; no matter how well the enemy plays, no matter how badly we play, Jesus gives us the victory hands down.  Jesus is our ace in the hole.

There are two other card terms I haven’t mentioned yet—a flush and a full house.  A flush is when every card in your hand is the same suit.  This describes what we will be like when the trump has been played and we get up from the table to go home.  In this life, our cards are always a mixture of black and red—the black of sin and the red of Jesus’ forgiving blood.  But when the game is won, there will be no more sin within us—our hands will be flush in pure red, the color of Jesus’ love for us

Which brings us to the full house.  Our Lord has always wanted a full house.  God’s home is large and magnificent, but it is far too quiet—God wants His home filled with the sounds of laughter and music and happy conversation.  This is why He tells us to invite others to join His card club.  God wants a full house, and He has plenty of room to spare.