The Choices We Make Make Us
"But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this
day whom you will serve.... But as for me [Joshua] and my household, we will
serve the LORD."1
“His lord said to him, 'Well done good and faithful servant; you have been faithful
over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy
of your lord.'”2
As a teen I was fortunate to be a member of a small, but
very active church. In our youth group we were very much challenged to serve
God with our life. Almost half of our group ended up in full-time Christian
ministry. In one family the oldest brother chose to become a missionary and
faithfully served God until he retired; of his two sisters, one dropped out of
church but did reasonably well in the business world; the other sister not only
dropped out of church, but became involved in an illicit relationship which
ended in disaster. She started drinking heavily, and sadly, today in her
retirement years has become an alcoholic having made shipwreck of her life.
Three friends"three different choices! One will certainly
go to a positive heavenly reward. I’m not sure how the other two will fare.
The reality is that at the end of life’s journey every person will be required to give an account of his
or her life to either Jesus Christ or God. For the Christian the Bible says,
“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may
receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether
good or bad.”3 Not so good for the non-Christian. We will address
their plight in tomorrow’s Daily Encounter.
So, if we want to receive a good report when we give a
personal account to the Lord, we need to make that our choice here and now, and
to make any changes that are necessary, for we become the sum total of all the
choices we have made in the past"and will become the sum total of these and all
the choices we make in the future. As Brian Tracy reminds us: “It’s choice, not
chance that determines our destiny.”
No matter what our past, the good news is that we can
choose right now to start making productive choices, and do so at the beginning
of every day so these choices will determine our ultimate destiny.
Let us remember too, that, as
Winston Churchill said, “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by
what we give.” Albert Schweitzer agrees. He said, “I don’t know what your
destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be
really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”
For the Christian our highest
service is to serve God and we serve Him by serving our fellow man. In the
words of another, “Our greatest legacy will be those who live eternally in
heaven because of our efforts,” and Billy Graham said, “I am convinced the
greatest act of love we can ever perform for people is to tell them about God’s
love for them in Christ.”
Suggested prayer: “Dear God, my choice today is to love
and serve You all the days of my life. Please make me usable and use me today
and every day to be and effective witness for Jesus by helping me to be ‘as
Jesus’ in some way to every life I touch and do this always for Your glory. So
help me God. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in
Jesus’s name, amen.”
NOTE: Learn how to be a missionary right from your own
home, and have a vital part in worldwide gospel outreach by becoming an ACTS
People Power for Jesus Partner. It’s very simple, non-threatening, and without
cost. See how at: http://www.actsweb.org/people_power_invite.php.
- Joshua 24:15 (NIV).
- Matthew 25:23 (NKJV).
- 2 Corinthians 5:10 (NKJV).
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