Nowadays we are faced with choices wherever we go: deciding on the shades of paint to use to decorate our homes, deciding what kind of lettuce or tomatoes to go in our salads, choosing clothes and so on…!
Many of these choices are not especially important, but other choices (choosing where we live, what job we do, our choice of life partner, our choice to have children or not, for example) can be far more significant. Choices regarding spiritual matters are especially important (not only for our happiness now, but in determining our eternal destiny), and Paul warned the Corinthians to build with care on the one foundation, Jesus Christ (see 1 Cor 3:10-15).
Moses (Deut 29 & 30) and Joshua (Joshua 23) both warned the people of God of the need to take obedience seriously and to choose between life and death (Deut 29:15-16, 19-20, Josh 23:6-14). Yet despite the many warnings about the need for wisdom (see Prov 2:1-8, Prov 3:1-2, 13-18), we still often make choices that are far from wise. Like Paul, we don’t do the things we know we should or do things we know we shouldn’t (see Rom 7). Why do we find it so hard to make wise choices?
- We Yield to the Old Nature
We can only make wise choices as we live in daily dependence on God, for our old nature will lead us away from God. We have sinful, unbelieving hearts (Heb 3:12) which persistently think we know better than God. The cost of discipleship is stark: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.’ (Matt 16:24-25) Only as we crucify the old nature with its passions and desires (Gal 5:24) and take seriously the need for discipline in our spiritual lives will we have the power to obey God and make wise choices.
2. We live as though now is all there is.
Unless we develop a long-term perspective, we will either be lured by sin’s attractiveness or defeated by our present suffering. Only when we view life through the lens of eternity can we withstand the enemy’s temptations to believe it will always be like it is now and have the courage to change. Rom 8:18 and 2 Cor 4:17-18 remind us of the long-term perspective we need. New habits take time to be formed; we must be like Moses who ‘chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.‘ (Heb 11:25)
3. We Have Unsurrendered Hearts
Surrender means yielding to God and accepting that He has the final say in our lives, that He is Lord over our lives and that that gives Him complete authority over us. Paul tells the Corinthians, ‘You are not your own; you were bought at a price.’ (1 Cor 6:19-20) When we are fully convinced of the price God has paid for us, the price of the blood of Jesus Christ, His beloved Son, we are motivated by a desire to live our lives to please Him and not ourselves. Only when we are fully convinced of God’s goodness and that He has our best interests at heart (even in our present suffering) will we be able to surrender to Him and believe that His ways are the best.