How many times have you heard the phrase, “Good luck!” Several times this week alone, maybe. I hear people say they are lucky almost daily. I’ll admit it’s a minor issue, but when I hear Christians say this word, as if it has some real meaning, I get quite disappointed. Consider my exhortation.
The definition of luck according to www.m-w.com
1 a: a force that brings good fortune or adversity b: the events or circumstances that operate for or against an individual
I urge you to consider what the Bible has to say about the force that brings good fortune or adversity:
{Emphasis my own}
(1 Timothy 6:13-15) 13 I charge you in the presence of God…14 to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,15 which he will display at the proper time–he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords,
(Acts 4:24) And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them,
And for an OT reference: (Proverbs 21:1) The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.
Simply put, I will make the claim that GOD ALONE is the supreme power of the universe. There is no concept of “luck” as we use it today. Luck is the idea that there is an external force that determines the outcomes of events. For example, a roll of a pair of dice or whether you get a job or not. I defy this and say that God is sovereign over every event. I’ll go so far as to say luck is the antithesis of a sovereign God; that a rational person cannot actually claim faith in the One True God of the universe and believe in luck.
So does God determine luck? In a sense, from a human perspective this would be our conclusion. God does determine or allow all events, and so from a human idea, he is the ultimate force that actually does determine good fortune. He IS what we consider luck. But the problem is that luck is not real. God is real. Luck is superstition and belief in it is ultimately idolatry because it ascribes to something other than God the power which is reserved only for God. Luck is a human explanation for things that we see in the world, an explanation born out of a desire to suppress the truth we know in our hearts as the existence of God. Romans 1:18-19 reminds us that human beings despise the accountability we have to this creation. Read my post on the gospel of the glory of Jesus Christ if you do not understand this point.
So what’s my point? Dear Christian reader, I implore you with all humility and grace to remove this word from your vocabulary. Drop the excuse that it is just a “phrase” you use, even if you in all honesty mean nothing by it. Don’t you want to be different from the rest of the world? Do you want to cause an immature brother or sister to stumble? What if a new Christian was looking up to you for guidance…what kind of example would that set for where you put your faith? Hold yourself to a higher standard. Speak always as if you really believe that God is the ONLY SOVEREIGN, and that your faith is in Him alone. Be different. Be peculiar. Be God honoring, Christ centered, and loving enough toward others to speak like someone who has been set aside for a purpose, to honor and glorify God alone.