Part 4: Decisions
Sunday, January 25
Teaching Series: Making Wise Choices
Choices
No matter what goes on in our lives, it is our personal responsibility to make wise choices. It has been your choices that got you where you are today. But there’s good news. You can change the direction your life is going. You don’t have to stay on this same path. You can live the life you were created to live. God has a plan for your life. He has created you for a purpose, with a purpose. So …
Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track. Don’t assume that you know it all. Run to God! Run from evil! (Proverbs 3:5-7)
Where you end up in life is based on seven things.
Words => Thinking => Emotions => Decisions
=> Actions => Habits => Character
Decisions
Life is a series of decisions. Every day that you wake up, you’ve got to make decisions. A decision is the open door to reality. In other words, it won’t become real until you make a decision. There are a lot of people wishing that this could happen, wanting that to happen, or saying that one day it’s going to happen. But without a decision, it can never be a reality. You’ve got to make a decision.
Think about this passage.
Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why is your expression downcast? Is it not true that if you do what is right, you will be fine? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. It desires to dominate you, but you must subdue it.” (Genesis 4:6-7)
Everything will be changed if he does right. God will show him favour, he will not be angry, and his face will reflect that. Doing right leads to victory and God’s blessing. Not doing right leads to sinful attack. Sin is portrayed here as a beast crouching and ready to pounce. Sin desires to control Cain for the sake of evil, but Cain must resist it and control himself. It will be a struggle, but sin can be defeated by righteousness.
Decisions are important. Your life is the sum total of the decisions that you make: where you are, who you are, what’s happening in your life. It’s based on the decisions that you’ve made. We all make decisions.
Your Decisions and God
God has given us the freedom and responsibility to decide fr ourselves. But that freedom is determined by our own character. You and I choose our own path. The things we allow into our heart will determine our path. We can freely choose, but that choice is limited to what we allow into our hearts.
We must accept our personal responsibility for our decisions. God does. He will hold you accountable for your every decision. You are responsible for your life.
For God will evaluate every deed, including every secret thing, whether good or evil. (Ecclesiastes 12:14)
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be paid back according to what he has done while in the body, whether good or evil. (2 Corinthians 5:10)
It is so easy for us to blame people or things for what has happened to us. We never want to accept responsibility for our own lives. “So and so did that to me, said this to me. So and so let that happen to me; they didn’t even try to stop it. I never had a chance. I’m stuck like this because of all of them.” All of us have our sets of problems and hurts and difficulties. It is so easy to blame.
We have got to understand what life is. Life is a series of decisions. You make decisions for your life. So you need to accept responsibility for your decisions. You are responsible for how you will react. You are responsible for your life.
A Quality Decision
We got to make decisions based upon God’s Word, being led by the Holy Spirit. It takes a quality decision. Not a casual decision. Your life is not a kid’s game, so why treat decisions like that – “Eeny meeny miney mo.” Make a quality decision. When you make a real decision of quality, you’ll surround that decision by boundaries. In other words, you have limited yourself to your decision and all other options are rejected. “I have chosen this. I reject everything else.”
For example, marriage vows is a limiting decision. “I take her to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part.” That is my vow. That is my responsibility. That is my duty. I have chosen marriage. All other options are rejected – no divorce, no shacking up, no adultery, no flirting, no hooking up, no other. I surround our marriage with boundaries.
Every real decision is surrounded by boundaries.
“Every act of will is an act of self-limitation. To desire action is to desire limitation. In that sense, every act is an act of self-sacrifice. When you choose anything, you reject everything else” (G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy).
You take the responsiblity to see it through. You back up your decision with everything you’ve got.
If your life lines up with God’s Word, then God is going to back you up. When you make a decision that lines up with God’s Word, then God is going to back you up.
Making Wise Choices series