Does Cheating Really Work?

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Does Cheating Really Work?

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This week the infamous cyclist, Lance Armstrong is, according to reports, going to admit to having cheated on his many Tour de France wins by using dope and other performance enhancers. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey he will bare his soul and implicate foul play in the sports industry that vaulted him to fame.

It could be that he truly wants to get this tiger of scandal off his chest, or it could be that he is making an effort to create a new image, of the reformed cheat who selflessly works to change the sport that destroyed him. The truth remains to be seen.

The fact of the matter is he cheated. He cheated big. He got caught. He’s in trouble. I wonder, would he be so ingenuous and forthcoming with the truth if he hadn’t been caught doping?

Do cheaters always win?

Thousands of years before Lance Armstrong was even a small child, there was another cheating scandal. It involved two twin brothers. The oldest, born moments before the other, would by right of inheritance receive the lion’s share of the family wealth and influence.

Jacob, the younger brother took things in hand and found a way, with the help of his mother, to displace his older twin, Esau. Esau was a kind of ancient Rambo, a mighty hunter who one day, after a long trek through the bush came home famished.

Jacob, clever and wily, devised a plan. He made a fantastic stew of lentils, knowing his impetuous brother would return home hungry and demand food at any price. This Esau did, and Jacob made one small but important requirement, he insisted Esau forfeit to him his birthright inheritance as the oldest sibling. Esau agreed and in the course of events sneered at his birthright, equating its value to nothing more than a cup of soup.

To complete the plot, Jacob and his mother Rebecca fooled his father Isaac with a costume meant to make Jacob resemble his hairy brother Esau. Jacob served his father a covenant meal, and Isaac blessed Jacob with the firstborn inheritance instead of Esau.

Esau was furious and out for vengeance. Jacob escaped by the skin of his teeth to the land of his mother’s brother, Laban. There Jacob went on to marry and have children and, in a stunning turn of events... be cheated out of wealth by his uncle Laban.

Jacob got what he gave. We like to call this poetic justice, but in Jacob’s case, God was teaching him an important lesson. Cheating does not pay. God had plans for him, but Jacob thought he could work the plan out himself on his own terms.

So how does this apply?

We shouldn’t cheat.

Cheating is deception and deception is lying. It gives us the appearance of being something that we are not. For instance, we may give the appearance of being brilliant mathematicians or essay writers at school when we are really only mediocre and have read someone else’s answers or copied an online paper and turned it in as our own.

Just like Jacob in the book of Genesis and Lance Armstrong on the Tour de France, cheating can appear to be lucrative, we could make money, or good grades, or secure a better scholarship because of it. But in the end, instead of letting God shape us and bless us as He desires to do, we steal our blessings and reject his teaching for our own, far less stellar plans.

If you struggle with a subject in school, take stock of your starting place and seek out a wise tutor. If embellishing your resume seems to be the answer to getting a better job, remember that God’s path is a wiser one than our own. There may be a greater lesson in the less perfect job, and the “better” job may, in fact, be the worse.

Our prize of eternal life in the family of God is worth playing by the rules to attain. Don’t be a dope, don’t cheat!