Daily Encounter: A Week-day Devotional by a staff of ACTS International.

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

"’Come, follow me,’ Jesus said.â€�¹

Like millions of others I happened to be born into a very ordinary family that happened to be quite dysfunctional. Nevertheless, there will always be one thing that I will be eternally grateful for and that is that my parents took me to Sunday School and church where I heard the Christian message. As a 15-year-old teenager I vividly recall responding to a challenge to serve God with my life.

Back then I could never have imagined in “a million yearsâ€� where that commitment was going to lead meâ€"to where I would be and what I would be doing today (and I couldn’t imagine being more thankful). The reality is that the choices and decisions we make today can and do affect us for the rest of our lives and for all eternity.

Regardless of one's age, the important thing is to choose wisely how we are going to live and for what purpose because the choices we make today will affect us, not only for the rest of this life, but for all eternity. In the words of Roy L. Sharpe:

    A Bag of Tools

    Isn't it strange
    That princes and kings,
    And clowns that caper
    In sawdust rings,
    And common people
    Like you and me
    Are builders for eternity?

    Each is given a bag of tools,
    A shapeless mass,
    A book of rules;
    And each must make â€"
    Ere life has flown â€"
    A stumbling block
    Or a stepping stone.

Each of us has been given “a bag of tools� and it’s up to each of us how we use them; that is, how we invest the one life we have been entrusted with. To be or not to be all that God has envisioned for us to be is the choice we are all called on to make.

Suggested prayer: "Dear Jesus God, my choice today (with Your help) is to love, serve, trust, obey, and follow You all the days of my life. And, acknowledging my own weaknesses, in the words of the hymn writer, ‘O to grace how great a debtor / Daily I’m constrained to be! / Let Thy  goodness like a fetter / Bind my wandering heart to thee / Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it / Prone to leave the God I love / Here’s my heart, O take and seal it / Seal it for Thy courts above.’² Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus's name, amen."

1. Matthew 4:19. (See also Matthew 8:22; 9:9; 10:38; 16:24; and 19:21).
2. Robert Robinson (1735-1790).

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