CHOICES
Today begins our 26th annual Lectureship on the theme of “Choices”. At times, individuals feel helpless because they think Satan gains victory after victory. In a subconscious way it is people thinking that Satan has all the power and he uses that power to control our lives. The reality, as we begin this study in our lectureship, is that each of us has a choice. Satan cannot make us do evil nor God make us do good. Since the beginning of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden, man has a choice. It is a decision making process that is life long and it holds our destiny in its hands.
When Jesus, the grace of God, appeared to man as both God and man, He came teaching about the good and the evil. Paul tells Titus that the Lord taught us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. This constitutes the wrong choices in life. The destiny of those who choose this road is spiritual death (Romans 6:23). The Lord also taught us to live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world (Titus 2:12). Here then is good choice and the right road to walk in, daily. If the outcome is determined by our choices, why does not everyone make the right choice? It is standing at the two roads in life, that is the broad way and the narrow way (Matthew 7:13,14). It is having both the moral and spiritual courage to take the right road.
The reason so many do not take the right road by making the right choices is because unrighteousness is deceivable (II Thessalonians 2:10). The person who does not receive a love of the truth will be deceived. The working of error leads men to believe a lie and then be condemned. The issue with the first pair on earth was that God said you would die and Satan lied to them and said they would not. Satan has a serious image problem in which he must convince the world, either that God does not exist or that God lies to us. This is why the Scriptures drive home the message that it is impossible for God to lie (Hebrews 6:18; Titus 1:2). Our salvation, direction and meaning of life is connected to the fact that God does not lie to us.
On the other hand, Satan does lie (John 8:44). He must convince the world that God is not how the Scriptures reveal Him. One of his major arguments to Eve was that God did not want man to be like Him. You and I understand that the very opposite is true. Man was created in the likeness and image of God (Genesis 1:26). God strives through His Word to bring man back to that awareness of what he is supposed to be. James argues that the ones who hear the Word but will not do it, deceive themselves (James 1:22). What is the nature of the problem? James says the man looks into the Word of God and then moves away forgetting what manner of man he was (James 1:24). Man forgets the image he was given from the very beginning.
The force of the gospel is to change us into the image of God’s Son (II Corinthians 3:18). As we mature in the Christian faith through the application of God’s Word we come to know that whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s (Romans 14:8). Our life belongs to Him because He purchased it with His own blood (Acts 20:28; Ephesians 1:7). Most in their lifetime will not acknowledge this truth and, hence, reject the Son of God. When they do, it is because God gave them that right to choose which kind of life they wanted. Those who embrace the doctrine of Jesus Christ abide in Him and He in them. That abiding causes us to bring forth much fruit to the Lord (John 15:5-7). The Scriptures provide us with the answers to life, in part, by showing us those who made the right and wrong choices.
The Lectureship this year will look at some individuals in life who made the right choice while others took the wrong road. We are a wise people if we can learn from the mistakes of others and the values of learning from good people about good decisions. In the final end each of us must decide which road to take. We take it not for momentary pleasure but with a view of the destiny involved (Hebrews 11:25).
The choices we make often affect the lives of those around us. Whether it be in the church or our own families, our choices have rippling affects into the lives of those around us. Choose today, whom you will serve.