Deuteronomy 30:15 (BBE)
See, I have put before you today, life and good, and death and evil;
How many choices do you make daily? What time to get up / what to wear / breakfast? / Ways to drive to work/use of time etc.] 100’s? 1,000’s? daily? We all make choices daily-cereal or porridge, stay in, or go out, cook dinner, or take out and many more. Some choices are a matter of life or death e.g., a band-aid on a paper cut or call 911 at the signs of a heart attack!
God’s Word to us comes from some of the last words that God gave Moses to write just before his death, recorded for us in Deuteronomy 30:19-20 encourages us to choose life, so that we and our children may live.
The people of Israel had a choice to make just as we do. To love and live for God or not-God had given them good laws for loving him, the smooth running of their lives for a happy society, did they choose this way? Did they choose life?
One of the Bible’s greatest principles is “choose life.” God sets before us two ways of life—His way and the wrong way—and gives us the freedom to choose which we will follow. He commands us to choose life so that we may live fully, both now and in His Kingdom, but we can opt for the other way of sin just as readily.
It is our choice to sin or live righteously. James is clear that we do not sin when tempted but “when desire has conceived” or when we choose to act on it, James 1:14-15. Sin begins with a choice and continues with the act.
In 1 kings 18:21. God says to choose but to burn all bridges to the former ways of life but some of us, have maintained open-ended options, contingency plans, and escape clauses in our relationship with God. Like the Laodicean, we look at our spiritual contract with a view of finding loopholes and exploiting the blessings. It is apparent that some of us still approach our calling with the attitude of “what can I get away with and still appear to be a Christian?”
We must choose! According to John 6:53, it is our responsibility to choose to intensify the sanctification process or to stop it. It is a choice. God says, “See, I have set before you this day life on the one hand and death on the other. Therefore, choose life!” Deuteronomy 30:19. We can choose to go along with God’s program, and if we do, we cannot hide the fruit. It will be produced. However, we can choose to reject it. It is our responsibility to make the choice.
Therefore, to “Choose Life” we MUST have a change of heart! And that change can only come through faith in Jesus, who graciously teaches us: “I Am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father (no one Chooses Life) except through Me.” John 14:6 and again Jesus teaches us: “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit…” John 15:16.
The Lord used the cosmic as a witness to His offer of choices to us and to let us know the consequences of obedience and disobedience. Let us desperately choose always.
Shalom