May 2018
We are faced with making choices all the time, for example there is the airline passenger…
Flight attendant: Would you like dinner, sir?
Airline passenger: What are my choices?
Flight attendant: “Yes” or “no.”
Some choices are easy and others very difficult and what is a difficult choice for one may be an easy decision for another.
Various internet sources estimate that an adult makes about 35,000 conscious decisions each day. This number may sound absurd, but in fact, we make 226.7 decisions each day on just food alone according to researchers at Cornell University (Wansink and Sobal, 2007). As your level of responsibility increases, so does the magnitude of choices you are faced with.
You and I have been given a free-will and a multitude of choices in life about:
- what to eat
- what to wear
- what to purchase
- what we believe
- what jobs and career choices we will pursue
- how we vote
- who to spend our time with
- who we will date and marry
- what we say and how we say it
- whether or not we would like to have children
- what we will name our children
- who our children spend their time with
- what they will eat, etc.
Each choice carries certain consequences, both good and bad. This ability to choose is an incredible and exciting power that we have each been entrusted with by our Creator and for which we have an obligation to be good stewards of.
Recently I was told of a choice that we all have. The choice is if we go to hell or not. When I heard this, I was left speechless because, although I know we have a choice to follow Jesus, I never thought of it quite so bluntly.
There are many pieces of scripture that tell us how to live to have life eternal (avoid hell) but John 3:16 speaks the loudest to me.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
The opposite of eternal life is a life separated from God – hell. We have many choices every day. Some of these choices are minor and others are incredibly important. Following Jesus is the most important choice we can make.
Blessing,
Pastor Deb