You have the ability to choose the way you want to live in any circumstances you find yourself in. Although you may not have any control over what happens at the hands of others or the decisions that other people make, you can choose your response. when you joined the family of God, you and I were given a tool box with many power tools. However, you are the only one who can choose when and how to use them. You see, we all choose which tools to use every time there is a choice to make. We measure the options with the tape measure of God, if we know it and choose to use it. We build the right kind of relationships with His hammer or ours. We need to choose. Looking through His lens will show us the way to go, but we need to choose to use it. These tools all come from His Word and the training from His Spirit. Our job is to identify them, pick them up, and use them purposefully so that it becomes automatic as we become so familiar with them we don't even have to think which to choose. He is the power behind the tools. Your future growth and who you become literally depend on the choices you make now to either use great tools which God's Holy Spirit gives you and powers which will bring you to success, or just grab for the ones that look good. A hand tooled leather tool belt filled with beautifully painted porcelain tools with handles painted with gold might be a valuable treasure, but it cannot be useful for building a house.
In Luke chapter 10, Jesus is spending time with his beloved friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Martha is scurrying about trying to get together dinner and get it on the table to fulfill the physical needs of all the dinner party. She becomes frustrated with her sister Mary, who is using the time to anoint Jesus, then reverently listening to Him speak. As she also is very close friends with Jesus she goes to Him and points out that it seems to her that he doesn't care that she has to do all the work, trying to feed those she loves; Jesus and the disciples. But in in her work she is missing out on the visiting, verse 40. Then, she tells the Lord to tell Mary to help her with the work. In verse 41 Jesus, very gently and patiently affirms her anxiety and frustration, going on to say that only one thing is needed. Since Mary has chosen the good part, it will not be taken away from her. Martha is looking to the physical, but Mary is looking to the spiritual by choosing to listen to the wisdom of Jesus, her Savior, while she has the opportunity.
We all have to make the choice in any given circumstance as to whether we will seek the good part. In Matthew 6:33, Jesus tells us that our highest priority in life should be to “...seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness...” Then he gives us guidance as to how to do that. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God” (Luke 4:4; compare Deuteronomy 8:3), for the words that He speaks to us are spirit, and they are our life, (John 6:63, paraphrased). Like Martha, our life can easily be taken up with many secondary needs, but our greatest need is the words of eternal life (John 6:68). That is the good part, and that lasts forever. Hebrews 2:1-3 emphasizes the importance of hearing and heeding the words of life: “Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him.” We have the choice to make, then the determination to live by that choice. Choose the good...
Yes, choices are a part of every day life. Some are obviously easier than others, but as Moses declared in Deuteronomy 30:19, “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live.” We have already been given the tools! I challenge you to read and study both chapters 29 and 30 to understand the entirety of what Moses was speaking about. Then, you have a choice to make.
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