You Decide

     Once there was a wise man that could answer life’s most difficult questions. So a young man, a recent graduate, decided to stump him.  He was sure he could outsmart him.  To do so he hid a live bird in his hands and asked the old man, “Sir, is the bird in my hands dead or alive?”

     His plan was simple. If the wise man said it was dead, he would open his hands and let the bird fly away. If the wise man said it was alive, the young graduate planned to give his hands a quick squeeze and open them to reveal a dead bird.  It was a clever plan.

     Surprisingly, the old man never looked at the young man's hands.  Instead, he looked straight into his eyes and said quietly, “My son, it is whatever you wish it to be.”

     It’s the same in life. The life you live, the life I live, is the one we wish it to be.  We decide.

     “Now hold on just a minute,” you say.  “How can you say that?”

     Because we make hundreds of decisions every day that directly or indirectly set the direction for our lives.  So much so that one could say, “We win or lose by the things we choose.”

     Our freedom to choose is also vital in our relationship with God.  We can choose to personally respond to God's great love for us in Jesus Christ or not.  The decision is ours.

     Many people make wrong choices about spiritual things.  A person may do well on a test score or a performance review, but if they fail to make the right choices about spiritual things, they may waste years of their life before coming to their senses.

     The most important decision we make in life is who or what we will worship.  In the Ten Commandments the God of the Bible says, “You shall have no other God's before me.”  God later explains he doesn’t just want to be first among many.  He wants to be our only God.

     What god or gods do you worship?

     A person’s god is what he or she chooses to put at the center of their life.  It can be clothes, sports, school grades, career, family, money, a hobby, romance, pleasure, sexual orientation or anger.  Once we decide, our ‘god’ determines whether we are happy, sad or feel fulfilled in life.

     Many people call themselves ‘Christian’ because they believe Jesus Christ is God.  But they break the First Commandment by putting someone or something else in first place at the center of their life.  And by allowing something else to control them, they worship another ‘god.’

     The choice to give Jesus Christ first place is the most important decision in all of life – even more important than your career or whom you marry.  The simple reason is that this choice, above all others, is eternally significant. 

     While many may try to convince us differently, the Bible says that heaven and hell do exist.  And the choice we make about which god we worship determines where we will live forever.

     Because there is a choice, you must choose. To not chose, is a choice.  Why not choose Jesus Christ?  That is the question that the famous mathematician, scientist and theologian Blaise Pascal often posed to non-Christians.  It’s called ‘Pascal’s Wager.’

     Here was Pascal’s logic, “If I am wrong about God existing, then neither of us would even know it, because we would both die and cease to exist and all consciousness would disappear. But, on the other hand, if I am right and you are wrong, when we both die, I will go to heaven, and you will go to hell. Now, it seems to me that any intelligent person would bet on the right side of that wager.”

     The choice is yours.  You decide.  But remember, you win or loose by the things you choose.

     Listen to the Bible; it’s great for your soul!