“Choose”
Friday, December 19th, 2008“It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to the yoke of slavery” (Gal. 5:1).
I want to make 3 observations from Deuteronomy 30:15-20a:
3. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for He is your life…”
Obsrv. 1: God says the opportunity He offers us is “life AND death, prosperity AND adversity…the blessing AND the curse…now choose.” It does not say OR but AND. Life on earth involves both good and bad. It rains on the just and the unjust. Whether temptation or a decision about God’s will, the options are always before us.I think there are times we want God to give us an OR instead of an AND. We believe this will make the choice easier. Then there are times we long for an AND instead of an OR…like at a restaurant or in a clothing store! God offers the AND.
Obsrv. 2: Our hearts turn FROM God before we ever turn TO an idol. The peace of God, then, is relinquished before an idol is sought; therefore, that idol has no chance of satisfying the need for the peace which comes from the presence of God. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 3:23) and this never changes, for it is the nature of sin. We are always free to choose, but we are not free to choose the consequences. Obsrv. 3: Everything works for God. Heaven and earth tell of God’s ways and point us toward Him. Refuse to love God and you will hate the world…and eventually disown yourself. Refuse to obey God’s voice and the world, circumstances, even your own body will work against you. Let go of God and run and you will be running from life! Let the rebellious child go, for Life will bring him back.Every day is a choice! But it can only be a choice if there are options. God grants us options. If we choose sin, we’ve chosen death, and death becomes “choice-less.” Why? Because sin is also slavery (John 8:34), so it has relinquished its choice. Slaves don’t choose. Sin is then unnatural because it has lost its freedom to choose.However, Jesus has set us free from sin through His death “for he [the believer] who has died [crucified with Christ] is freed from sin…therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body” (Rom. 6:7,12). Now we have options again. Options are only for the free!
Because of what Jesus has done for us, we are free to choose again! We were slaves of sin, but now we are slaves of Christ (Eph. 6:6). Choice is only possible for the free. “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.“ (v.36). God can only offer choices to free people. We are free to choose! We can choose and we must choose. God works WITH us for freedom’s sake (My 14-year-old son Carson just summarized it this way): “You have to be free to make a choice and you have to make a choice to be free.”Choose Life!Quotables:
Dr. Larry Crabb writes… “We must insist that the image of God is central . . . that our sinfulness, not how we’ve been sinned against, is our biggest problem; that forgiveness, not wholeness, is our greatest need; that repentance, not insight, is the dynamic in all real change.”Scott Wolfe says…
In Isaiah 6, the angels proclaim three ways God is not like us– “Holy, Holy, Holy!”
