Addition By Subtraction

“The unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity.”

Proverbs 11:3

With a horrible record after the first 28 games of the season, the Detroit Pistons decided to release one of their best players, despite still having to pay him over $20 million in the coming years. Now, we would all expect that getting rid of a top player would make a team worse but the opposite happened; the Pistons started playing better and actually winning more after that move was made. Many reasons were given for the improvement in basketball terminology but the final commentary always seemed to include this: addition by subtraction.

The principle is not new. Someone is removed from a team at work who causes chemistry problems among the staff and the work environment improves dramatically. A person who constantly complains and finds faults drops out of your circle of friends and a heaviness is lifted and the fun of spending time with friends almost instantly returns to the group. An addictive habit or a destructive attitude is finally conquered in your life and you feel free as a bird, ready to take on life with a new excitement that has been missing for years. In every case, the breakthrough we are experiencing is the result of addition by subtraction.

Hebrews calls us to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” Progress in life is not always from trying harder and doing more. We will all find ourselves in situations where the next step in our growth is getting rid of something that is hindering us. Letting go of a relationship that is pulling us back toward the world and sin, waking up to a negative attitude that is poisoning our own well and feeding discontent in our lives, or quite simply getting victory over an area of sin in our lives that has gotten control of us and stands in the way of our going on with the Lord. Far too often we come to the point where we are at a standstill, that place where we aren’t going anywhere in life until something goes.

The Detroit Pistons releasing a star player still under contract was unprecedented, a move never before made in the history of the NBA. But did that stop them? No, doing what everyone else has always done is not why you play the game; you play to win! In the same way, you may be a candidate for a spurt of growth and serious breakthrough in your life. But is may require the hard step of addition by subtraction. Figure out who you want to be as a person and as a Christian, and get rid of anything that doesn’t fit with your accomplishing those goals!

God Bless,
Pastor Joe
Gateway Church