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

Thursday, February 1, 2018

"Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. . . . But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."¹

Floyd Lane, a talented basketball player who attended "City College in New York in 1951, accepted a $3,000.00 bribe to shave points in just three games. Because other players were doing this, he decided to go with the group."

Big mistake. He and the other players got caught, arrested, and expelled from school. For the next twenty-three years Lane was unable to get a job as a player or a coach in sports because of what he had done. Finally, in 1974, his old college employed him as a coach.

When we make mistakes, which we all do from time to time, it's encouraging to know that we still have a choice to put things right. Fortunately, when we admit what we have done, God forgives us. The next step is to put things right, and to make sure we deal with and resolve the root cause of our mistakes so we don't keep repeating the same mistakes and making bad choices.

More important is that we don't make bad choices in the first place because it is "choice, not chance, that determines our destiny." All of us are where we are today based on the choicesâ€"good and badâ€"that we have made in the past. Furthermore, where we will be in five, ten, fifteen, twenty years timeâ€"and in eternityâ€"will be based on the choices we have made or will make today and in the future.

Above all, when it comes to eternityâ€"life after deathâ€"as the Bible urges, choose carefully and wisely whom you will serve. Be absolutely sure you have your "passport for heaven." You can see how to obtain yours by going to: http://www.actsweb.org/articles/article.php?i=25&d=1&c=2&p=1. Whatever you do, don't leave earth without it.

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, thank you that we have a choice about life after death and that you have provided the way of salvation by giving your Son, Jesus, to die for my sins. Please help me to know with certainty that my sins are forgiven and that I have my 'passport for heaven.' Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name. Amen."

Note: For further help read the article, "Life After Death" at: http://tinyurl.com/8brzh

1. Joshua 24:15 (NKJV).

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