How do some men get so far from good, those who lead such heinous lives, who by all accounts are truly evil men?  How do men and women find themselves doing things they swore they would never do?  How is it that so many fall so far from where they set out to be?

Peter speaks of false teachers and brutes who deceive and carouse and pursue wickedness in 2 Peter chapter 2.  I think that he gives us a clue in those verses that answers this age old question: How on earth did I get here, how did I ever let this happen?

There are many descriptors of what evil men do listed, but one descriptor is not so much what they do but what they no longer do.

They have left the straight way and have wandered off….                        2 Peter 2:15

When you load up the car and head to D.C., do you map out a course or do you wander?  When you have an appointment in another city at a certain time, do you wander there or do you purposefully set your course?

Most of us don’t plan to leave the straight way that leads to life and purpose and wisdom and meaning and love.  Yet so many of us find ourselves far from that intended path.  We find we have indeed left the straight path.  We have wandered off.

Life must be so purposeful, so intentional.  If we just let things come as they may and answer to whatever demand comes at us at the time, the day loses it’s purpose and it’s productivity.  You lose sight of what you were supposed to get done, you doubt that all you did was worth doing.  The greatest of things rarely ever happen without someone intending them to.  Without intention, there is wandering.

As believers, we are not designed to wander.  The Israelites weren’t meant to wander, they were meant to conquer.  It was only in their sin that God condemned them to 40 years of purposeless wandering.  That wasn’t the perfect plan.  We are wired for action, for purpose, for victory, for conquest, for intentionality.  While God has been known to provide in our wanderings, while He promises and has proven that He will not leave us no matter how far we wander, it isn’t the plan. We were made to cling to the straight path, to resist the bending and the following of crooked ways.  In order to  stay straight, we must be mindful of all the ways and situations in which we bend.

David Platt’s word choice has become well known, Radical.  In order to keep to the straight path, we must be radical.  We must be intentional in every step, we must vigilantly watch after the course of our paths, we must not allow ourselves to wander too far off course.  If you want to live the life of the righteous, if you want to put yourself in a position to fulfill every purpose for which He designed you, it WILL NOT happen by accident.  You WILL NOT wander into eternal greatness. You WILL NOT bear the name righteous without putting in the work.  And the measure is set high, the bar is infinite perfection. Christ alone is the standard.  If we endeavor to model Christ, trust me, we’re going to look radical.  You will stand out, and even some of the greatest Christians you know will say that you have taken it too far.

If you ever use the word bend: I had to bend the truth a little, I had to stretch the definition of that policy just a bit, I needed to gloss over that situation; these are obvious signals, you’re not just bending truths, your bending your path.  The way isn’t lying out straight before you any more.

There are two realities here.  One, righteousness takes work, it doesn’t come hap-hazardously, it will never just fall in your lap.  And two, if righteousness is your goal, every situation in which you bend your values, the truth, God’s perfect standard, the further you will find yourself from the righteousness you seek.

If Christ is your aim, you won’t even be throwing at the same targets this world shoots for.  You will need to set your eyes and your standards on things the world doesn’t see, value, or understand.  But it will win you a prize of eternal value and be worth every ounce of your vigilance and sacrifice.