“Making the Wise Choice”
October 3, 2010
“The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." Genesis 2:15-17
Choices! We make them every day. From choosing when we will get up, what we will eat, what we will do with our time, to when we go to bed – our day is full of choices. And every choice has a consequence. If we choose to sleep in – it might cost us our job. If we choose to eat as much as we want - it may cost us our health. If we choose to go to bed too late - it may mean we will be tired the next day. Choices have consequences.
Most of our choices are pretty insignificant – but even what seems minor can affect our entire life. For example, when I got out of the army as a young Military Police Sergeant, I received a letter from the governor of Minnesota inviting me to become a Highway Patrolman. I was tired of uniforms and being bossed around – so I decided to ignore the invitation. But my life would have been vastly different had I accepted. I don’t know if it would have been better or worse – just different. Or maybe when God called me to preach I would have had to leave that job instead of the job I had working in the iron mines. Or maybe law enforcement would have been my ministry – I don’t know.
Most of our choices are pretty minor with minor consequences, but some are life changing. Dating, Choosing when and with whom to have sex, marriage, career, schooling - these are tremendously important.
Spiritual choices have eternal consequences. Choosing to accept or reject Christ as your Savior affects life here and now and also for eternity. Choosing to totally surrender to the Savior’s Lordship affects life here and now and eternity, as well. The Holy Spirit can not come in His fullness to a disobedient heart, Acts 5:32 says, and without the Holy Spirit living in our hearts in His fullness, we do not have the power we need to live the victorious life. Without the Holy Spirit producing the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience and so on, life is much more difficult than it needs to be.
The Bible tells us that God made us in His image. Maybe the power of choice is the area we are most like God. We can choose heaven or hell. We can choose to alter our life and eternal destiny. We can choose to ‘make life’ or ‘take life’. And with each choice come consequences. Listen to the Word of God.
“If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword." Isaiah 1:19-20
“The Most High will thunder from heaven; the Lord will judge the ends of the earth.”
1 Samuel 2:10
“He rules the world in righteousness and judges the peoples with equity.” Psalm 9:8 TNIV
“But you, Lord Almighty, who judge righteously and test the heart and mind, … to you I have committed my cause.” Jeremiah 11:20 TNIV
"'I the LORD have spoken. The time has come for me to act. I will not hold back; I will not have pity, nor will I relent. You will be judged according to your conduct and your actions, declares the Sovereign LORD.' " Ezekiel 24:14 TNIV
“Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of people's hearts. At that time each will receive their praise from God.” 1 Corinthians 4:5 TNIV
“There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.”
(Jesus) Luke 12:2-3
Choices have consequences. Every choice is important. Therefore before making any decision you ought to do two things – Think and pray. Give a little thought to the coming consequences. Better yet, pray. Ask for God’s leading and direction. That seems like such simply advice – but so often we don’t do it. Why not? It is because of how we make our decisions. We make decisions one of four ways. Peer influence, (sometimes called peer pressure), emotion, intellect and Spirit.
It has been my observation that the most important way; the most reliable way; the most correct way of making choices, is used the least - and the least effective way of making choices we use the most. It’s kind of ironic. Let’s take a look at these four ways of choosing.
First, we have peer influence. This is not always a bad thing. The bible says,
“Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.” Proverbs 15:22
“Surely you need guidance to wage war, and victory is won through many advisers.” Proverbs 24:6
The wise person seeks counsel when making a decision. In the book of Ezra we read,
“You are sent by the king and his seven advisers to inquire about Judah and Jerusalem with regard to the Law of your God, which is in your hand.” Ezra 7:14
Notice the king had seven advisors. All kings had advisors. They were powerful and influential. The advise they gave could determine the king’s fate. Sometimes they led to his destruction.
“Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem one year. His mother's name was Athaliah, a granddaughter of Omri. He too followed the ways of the house of Ahab, for his mother encouraged him to act wickedly. He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, as the house of Ahab had done, for after his father's death they became his advisers, to his undoing.” 2 Chronicles 22:2-4
It is really important whom you get your advice from. Sometimes even your mother can steer you wrong. If you get the wrong advisor they can exert pressure on you to do the wrong thing. We call that peer pressure – and we have all experienced it. The crowd we hang with influences us. The clothes we wear, the way we do our hair, the words we use are often to appease or please our peers. How many times has someone take a drink or smoked or tried drugs because they were pressured into it by their peers.
If you have the right peers around they can influence you to make good choices, like going to church, reading your Bible, becoming a better person, and so on. Do you see how important it is to have the right peers around you? A lot of the choices you make are because of the influence of others – the kind of car you drive, the clothes you wear, how you spend your money; these things, more than we would like to admit are because of pressure we feel from others. When we try to “keep up with the Jones” we really get in trouble. Peer pressure is why so many have such huge credit card debt.
Many of our choices, if not determined by our peers, are at least influenced by them.
The second great influencer of our choices is ‘emotion’. Sometimes a choice made emotionally is exactly right. Usually it is the ‘fight or flight’ decision. A mad dog attacks and our emotions spike and we take flight or fight, depending on the situation. Often our emotional decision is horribly wrong.
“And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD : "If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering."
Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the LORD gave them into his hands. He devastated twenty towns from Aroer to the vicinity of Minnith, as far as Abel Keramim. Thus Israel subdued Ammon.
When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of tambourines! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, "Oh! My daughter! You have made me miserable and wretched, because I have made a vow to the LORD that I cannot break." Judges 11:30-35
That is a pretty good example of what can happen when we make an emotional decision. We may not reap those consequences but how many have committed sexual sins because they emotionally gave into the flesh? How many have gone to jail because they emotionally reacted in the wrong way? Most of our choices are not so dramatic, but when we emotionally speak – we injure people. When we emotionally give into the flesh we don’t pray, we don’t go to church or Bible study, we don’t do what we ought. On the other hand, so often we do the wrong thing because we felt like it. That’s called “walking after the flesh”. Paul writes:
“Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires… The mind of sinful man is death… the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.”
Romans 8:5-8
Are you walking after the flesh? Do you do what you want to do instead of what God wants you to do? That’s a dangerous place to be. A better place is to ‘think’ before acting. A better way to make decisions is “Intellectually”. God gave us a brain – we ought to use it. “Think before you act!”
“The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways,” Proverbs 14:8
I have learned that a wise thing to do before making a decision is to get a pen and piece of paper, draw a line down the middle, and write down all the negatives of the choice and then all the positives. This causes you to think a little deeper than you normally would. Before you consider marrying anyone, you ought to do what Julie did. She put down on paper all the qualities in a man she wanted to spend her life with. I had only one main quality, they had to love the Lord with all their heart. The first one I found – I married!
The point is that you need to think ahead of time, BEFORE you make those important decisions. Consider your actions and the consequences. But the intellect can lead you astray. We are a fallen race with a fallen nature. We can’t trust our intellect. Listen.
“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools.” Romans 1:18-22
There are so many in our world who claim to be wise, even looking down on the common folk. The despise God and religion. They think it is for fools – but it is they that are the fools. King David said, “The fool says in their heart, ‘there is no God.’” (Psalm 14:1) God is clearly seen in the things He has made and only a fool doesn’t see Him. When you don’t glorify God or are thankful for what He has done, your heart and mind become darkened. The Bible says,
“The god of this age (Satan) has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” 2 Corinthians 4:4
Believing is a choice. We can choose to believe or not. I choose to believe. I choose to believe the Bible is the Word of God. I choose to believe Jesus died for my sin and paid the penalty for them. I choose to believe He rewards righteousness. Believing is a choice – and it has consequences. Think about it!
“But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." Joshua 24:15
“As for me and my house – we will serve the Lord.” That a Spiritual choice we make intellectually. Sometimes we make it emotionally. Some even are pressured into making a choice by their peers. As we grow in grace, that choice has to be made from deep within our spirits.
Let’s talk about Spiritual choices. It’s the highest form of choice and the most sure. The Bible says,
“For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.” Romans 8:14
“You, however, are not controlled by the sinful nature but are in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.” Romans 8:9
“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.”
Galatians 5:16
How do you make a Spiritual choice? You seek the Spirit, of course. You do that by prayer and by reading the Bible. When you are faced with a choice, go to God in prayer. The Holy Spirit is given to us to guide us and lead us into right actions. We have God’s Word that is full of information on what God desires that we do and what He desires we don’t do. When we do God’s will, it will always result in good things. Sometimes the reward may not be immediate and sometimes doing His will seems like it will result in bad things – pain, sacrifice, and denial of ourselves. But God promises to work everything out for our good if we love Him. When faced with an important choice, always go to God for direction. God gave us the responsibility of making choices – but He hasn’t left us on our own. He will help us make choices – if we seek His guidance. God said
“This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life…” Deuteronomy 30:19-20
The Lord is our life. The greatest choice in life is to accept Jesus as our Savior. Jesus said,
"Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned.” John 5:8-9
Like God, we are eternal. We were created to live forever. And we will – in heaven or hell. The location is our choice. Those that accept Jesus as their Savior will live forever. Those that reject Him – reject eternal life.
The second most important choice in life is whether to make Jesus our Lord or not. He can be our Savior and not our Lord. There are many people who claim He has saved them – but by their walk they deny Him. They rebel against His will for their life. He is not Lord – they are. Until you make Jesus Lord you can not enjoy the full power of the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit leading you, empowering you, blessing you – life is very hard.
Making Jesus Lord is as simply as surrendering your will to His. Jesus prayed in the Garden, “Not my will – but yours be done.” When that is the attitude of our heart – then the Spirit can fill us and empower us and we can enjoy all that means in our life.
If you have not accepted Jesus as your Savior, I invite you to do so now. The Word says “if we confess our sins, HE is faithful and just and will forgive our sins..” 1 John 1:9.
Jesus longs to forgive you. He only waits for your permission – your invitation. He also longs for you to trust Him enough to make Him Lord of your life. The way to do that is very simple. Jesus said we only need to ask. Would you ask the Lord to fill you with His Holy Spirit today?
Dear Jesus,
I confess I have made a lot of wrong choices. I have rebelled against you. I have sinned against you. Please forgive me and save me from the consequences of my sin. I pray you would fill me with your Holy Spirit. I surrender my will to yours. Give me the power to life for you from this moment on.
“Shepherd of Love”
