Lot made a choice as to where to live, and as a result he experienced:
1) War and kidnapping - Gen 14
2) Oppression and torment by the ungodly citizens of Sodom - 2 Pe 2:7-8
3) Loss of all his possessions, death of his wife, and incest with his daughters - Gen 19
David chose to commit adultery with Bathsheba, and as a consequence he suffered:
1) The death of his infant son - 2 Sam 12
2) A daughter molested by her half-brother - 2 Sam 13
3) That son killed by her vengeful brother - 2 Sam 13
4) A rebellion led by that son, who shamed him publicly, and whose death brought even more grief to David - 2 Sam 15-18
Some times we can spend more time making other decisions than we do making those that affect our spiritual walk with God.
I was thinking about some of the important CHOICES, WHICH can affect us
- CHOOSING A CAREER / Job
- CHOOSING A Spouse
- CHOOSING WHERE TO LIVE
- Buying a car
- Private school? Public? Home Schooling?
- Pizza Hut or Pappa Johns?
- Perkins or Embers?
- Coke or Pepsi?
No one wants to miss heaven. That should be the easiest choice for us to make. The problem is living our lives between making that choice and getting there.
James gives us good advice on how to do that...
- submit yourselves therefore to God.
- resist the devil
- Draw nigh to God
- Cleanse your hands
- purify your hearts.
- Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. (in other words, don' be afraid to show emotions)
- Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord
- Speak not evil one of another,
- Don't be judgmental
He tells us this because
14. Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
You see there is a hope, you can make it.
It is the hope that we have in Jesus that can motivate us to live for him.
They tell a story..
A number of years ago a teacher assigned to visit children in a large city hospital received a routine call requesting that she visit a particular child. She took the boy's name and room number and was told by the teacher on the other end of the line, "We're studying nouns and adverbs in his class now. I'd be grateful if you could help him with his homework so he doesn't fall behind the others."
It wasn't until the visiting teacher got outside the boy's room that she realized it was located in the hospital's burn unit. No one had prepared her to find a young boy horribly burned and in great pain. She felt that she couldn't just turn and walk out, so she awkwardly stammered, "I'm the hospital teacher, and your teacher sent me to help you with nouns and adverbs."
The next morning a nurse on the burn unit asked her, "What did you do to that boy?"
Before she could finish a profusion of apologies, the nurse interrupted her: "You don't understand. We've been very worried about him, but ever since you were here yesterday, his whole attitude has changed. He's fighting back, responding to treatment--. It's as though he's decided to live."
The boy later explained that he had completely given up hope until he saw that teacher. It all changed when he came to a simple realization. With joyful tears he expressed it this way: "They wouldn't send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy, would they?"
Jesus is here today to offer you hope! He has not given up on you. He is not ignoring you! He has not forgotten you. You are here today for a reason... he loves you!
He wants YOU to choose today to live for him. To dedicate your life to him.
He wants YOU to repent your sins, to be baptized in Jesus and to be filled with the Holy Ghost
YOU!
He wants you to dedicate YOUR life to him
1 Thessalonians 5
1. But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.
2. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
3. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
4. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
5. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
6. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
7. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.
8. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.
9. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
10. Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.
11. Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.
Our hope is in him... today the Lord wants to offer you...
HOPE!
Because of that Hope we can say
I wouldn't take nothing for my journey now!
