Making The Right Choices
By Angie Lewis
As we grow in the Lord and learn more about how scripture
affects our lifestyle, we make choices that work with our new
growth in Christ. Scripture has a way of molding us into who we
are or who we are not. Christians usually mature as they grow in
the Word. And as we mature so do our choices in life. Some of
these choices may be very subtle and we won’t even realize the
change, but other choices will be major and will make a total
transformation in our lives and the way we live – hopefully for
the better.
Subtle changes are ones that affect us personally rather than a
whole group or family. It may be that we have slowly changed the
kind of music we listen to, or changed the manner of how we
dress, or changed the kind of programs we watch on television.
When we take up our own cross to follow Christ some of our
choices can be very difficult. If we have a family, it will
affect them all – that means there may be dissention and
confusion among members of that family. But we must persevere if
we want to continue to mature and grow spiritually in the Lord
and do His will. If we truly believe it is the will of God we
must choose to follow Him.
As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man
named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. ‘Follow me,’
he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
Matthew 9:9
Matthew could have asked Jesus why he wanted him to follow him
but Matthew did not question Jesus. He knew in his heart it was
the right thing to do. We shouldn’t stop following Christ
because a family member doesn’t want us to. Sometimes we may
have to leave behind those things that would hinder us in
following Christ.
God allows us to make our own choices in this life. We can
choose to follow Him and His wisdom-filled ways or we can choose
to follow our own understanding of what we think is wisdom. Some
of us will discover that our ways our not conducive to a
faithful, righteous Christian lifestyle and continue to grow and
mature in the Word, while others will still not be able to
distinguish a lifestyle apart from their own.
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful
desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of
their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God
for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than
the Creator – who is forever praised. Amen.
Romans 1:24-25
These people chose to reject God and God allowed them to do it.
And it is no different today. God is not going to stand over us
with a paddle and tell us what we can or cannot do. God allows
us to do whatever our heart desires and many make rebellious
choices. When we inspect the condition of the world today we see
no difference in the sexual morality of its people. Does life
without God mean freedom? Are these people who are enslaved to
their sexual lusts free? They were only free to make choices but
once they made that choice there will be consequences. There is
no worse choice than to be controlled by our sinful and lustful
desires.
Because of this, god gave them over to
shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for
unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural
relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one
another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and
received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
Romans 1:26-27
The great news is we can choose to follow God’s choices for our
life. We can put our trust and faith in God and let Him choose
for us. It may be that we think His choices for us our not the
right ones, but know that they are what is needed in our life at
the time of that choice, because God loves us and He will always
know what is best for us at all times and in all things. If we
doubt God or we doubt His choices for us simply means we have
already decided against Him. We’ve made our choice.
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal
life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s
wrath remains on him.
John 3:36
