This last weekend I had the honor of speaking at a youth Bible camp. Our topic was “Choices.” Thought this would be a good message for this week, especially since we are coming up on Resurrection Sunday.
ALL choices have consequences, whether good or bad. Some are short term, others are long term, but they all ultimately lead to the choice where we will end up eternally. Our eternal choice is ours to make.
The seemingly small choices we make on a daily basis are what ends up defining us and defining our future. The small choices are what lead us to our big ones.
The choices we make are dependent upon what we are being influenced by: who we are talking to, what we read, the music we listen to, the movies we watch, the friends we hang with. The old saying is true: “Show me your friends and I’ll tell ya where you’ll be in 5 years.”
Many of the choices we make don’t just impact us, but others around us.
God gave Adam and Eve a choice, and they chose to be rebellious. In Deuteronomy 27- 30 God laid out many choices, the blessings and curses and left it up to the people to choose. The Lord makes it very clear to us all through scripture what His expectations are, but gives us the choice: curses or blessing, life or death, heaven or hell. God doesn’t choose for us, and we can never blame God for sending people to hell when we are called to make that decision ourselves. We were sufficiently warned.
How great is it that the Lord is not just a Lord of choices, but also a Lord of chances! Every single one of us mean so much to Him and it is not in His will to lose a single one of us.
C.S. Lewis says in Mere Christianity: “Every time I make a choice, that central part of us, the part that chooses, changes just a little bit. And through the course of a lifetime those
innumerable choices we make, day in and day out, that central part of us that chooses is either becoming a heavenly creature or a hellish creature. And it depends on the choices we make.”
The greatest choices in the history of man were the choices God made. The choice to humble Himself and come to earth as a man. The choice to come and serve others. The choice to be tempted as we are. But the greatest choice was to go to the cross and die for us and to take the punishment of God’s wrath that each and every one of us deserve.
Joshua 24:14-15 – “Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the river and in Egypt. Serve the Lord! And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the river, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
John 10:10 – “The devil only comes to kill, steal, and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” It’s YOUR choice. Chose life!
Next Sunday, Brian Cole will continue his message right here on DrydenWire.com
Last Update: Apr 08, 2017 11:38 pm CDT
