Sabbath: The Choices We Make
Image © Pacific Press from GoodSalt.com
Read for This Week’s Study: Eph. 1:1-4; Matt. 22:35-37; Matt. 7:24-25; Prov. 18:24; 1 Cor. 15:33; Eccles. 2:1-11.
Memory Text: “And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15, NKJV).
Ever notice that life is full of choices? In fact, one could argue that in many ways, what we do all day, from the moment we get up until we go to bed, is make choices. We make so many choices that often we don’t even think about them. We just make them.
Some choices are simple and even become routine, while others are life-changing and have eternal consequences, not only for us but even for our own families.
Hence, how crucial that we think through our choices, especially the big ones, the ones that can impact us and our families for the rest of not only our own lives but our family members’ lives, as well.
How many of us, to this day, regret the choices we have made? How many, to this day, live with the wreckage from the wrong choices made even long ago? Fortunately, there is forgiveness. There is redemption, and there is healing, even for the worst of decisions.
This week, we will look in a very broad way at the question of the choices we make, how we should make them, and what impact these choices can have on ourselves and our families.
Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, April 13.
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I have noticed that there is a spectrum of choice behaviours. At one extreme there are those who make choices quickly, and at the other extreme some people take a long time to make up their minds about anything. I don’t know where I sit in relation to the extremes, but I do know that I take more time than my wife, Carmel, to come to a decision. Most of the time it does not matter, but there are times when Carmel’s speed and my slow analysis do not agree and then we have an issue of how best to resolve the issue.
There is a lot to consider about decisions and choices this week, and it is worth remembering that are not all alike in our decision making. It makes sense when sitting on church boards and the like that sometimes we try to force a corporate decision before everyone has had time to consider all the issues. I was on a committee once that was making a decision about a project that was going to cost more than $100,000. We made the decision to go ahead with the project. I had a little niggle in the back of my mind and although I had supported the vote, I quickly did some homework after the meeting and found that the project could not go ahead within the parameters we had discussed. We had not discussed the impact of the project with the people who were going to be affected by the project. That was a big oversight, so I asked for the committee to meet again, and put forward my findings and cancelled our previous commitment to the project until we were fully prepared.
Good decisions can only be made when we have gathered all the relevant information together. And that goes for choosing one’s beliefs, choosing a life partner, or making business decisions.
That quote is worth keeping in mind.
We have to live with the consequences of the choices we make very very few can be reversed. We can only make the best out of the situation we find ourselves in.
However we are so blessed that spiritually it is a different matter because we can be born again, Jesus can give us a new 💓 heart.
Jesus died to permit and preserve our ability to say "no" to Him. I picture the cross with it's horizontal beam, which held Jesus' arms and hands, as a type of road sign. We can choose to turn to the right hand or to the left hand. Our ability to choose is Calvary's purpose. We are not robots and were never designed to never make bad choices. But true liberty is not found in going it our way, but only in fellowship with the God that is the personification of liberty (God is the ONLY completely autonomous Being, dependent on nothing else).
We are given choices to make. May we make them wisely.
Making choices are a gift from God, however God allows us those choices whether good or bad. The question should be do we pray first? We often make snap decisions without praying first. A bad habit.
While we have been given the power of choice, we must also consider the consequences of that choice, not only upon ourselves, but also upon those we are closest to. Our choice is not solely ours, thus Joshua in his statement "as for me AND my family" leaving the high probability of one person controlling another.
Jesus knew what He was stating when He said "there would be persecution". This comes about when we pervert the truth of God and try to force that perversion upon another.
Not everyone is going to be happy with any and most of our decisions in life - including our life's work, our choice of marriage partner, even our daily routines bring dissatisfaction to others.
Which brings to mind Paul's advice to "esteem others above ourselves" Phil 2:3 My, what a conundrum! This gift of choice from God should give cause for pause.
I can relate to the man in John 9:1. His problem is more severe, but I can relate because I have a congenital problem with the same organs. I was born and had my primary education in the West Indies. I wouldn't know until I was 11 years old that I was born with Myopia, or nearsightedness. It was discovered during a pre-admission high school physical. Looking back, I now understand how my physical condition affected my tendency to sit in the front of the class, when I had that option, and to squint. My parents and teachers up to that point did not notice my problem. In fact, on a few occasions I got in trouble (along with my good Samaritan best friend) for "talking in class". My explanation, that I was asking what was written on the chalkboard fell on deaf ears, and we were separated.
As our eyes are in relation to vision, so is our brain to our decisions. While there appears to be multiple contributing causes to nearsightedness, the most common cause is related to the physical shape of the eyes. The eyeball is too long, and so the image entering the eye comes to a focus in front of, instead of on the retina. Society, unfortunately including the Christian community, is conflicted on the subject of good, evil and our individual (and therefore all kinds of groupings of individuals) freedom to choose between the two.
In more than just one or two places, in both the Old (Ps 14:1-3; Jer 13:23) and New Testament (Rm 3:9-12; 5:12,14), Scripture declares the impotence of the human brain to save any owner, without Divine intervention (Col 1:12-13; Heb 7:25). Scripture's revelation has been variously depicted as enslavement (Jn 8:33-34), incurable disease (Isaiah 1:5-6), blindness (1 Jn 2:11), death (1 Cor 15:22). Interestingly, the solution is depicted as birth (Jn 3:3,5)--something we exercise no choice in.
Christianity has struggled to reconcile and to properly explain the apparent disagreement between Scripture's declaration of human impotence and our clear experience of the ability to make, withhold and reverse our daily decisions. Human societies and Christianity have become so behavior focused, that we have fallen into the misconception pit of thinking that if it is behavior that gets us into trouble with God and each other, then we are therefore free to just choose to behave our way back into a harmonious relationship with God and each other. That half-truth (or whole lie), while it suffices in our flawed human relationships, forever remains rejected by God in our relationship with Him because He has a far better arrangement.
God wanted national Israel to come to a realization and share in His truthful knowledge of them by allowing them to go through some real-life experiences, so He allowed them to go into Egyptian enslavement (Dt 5:15). That experience should have served to educate them to their vulnerability to "the flesh", people like themselves, binding and dictating their service of their Creator (Ex 5:4-8; Dt 5:27,29; Jer 17:9). God had to show up, not because they called Him, but because of His knowledge and loving concern for their predicament (Ex 3:9-10). He initiated the action--not because they asked Him--of breaking the power of their enslaver (Ex 13:3). Everything, after the killing of the pharaoh's first-born, the protective blood on the lintels, the parting of the Red Sea, the destruction of the pursuing forces, the water from the rock, manna from heaven, the parting of the Jordan and their eventual entry and subjugation of the land God promised (Josh 3:9-11), bears a Divine stamp in which no human should be bold enough to insert him or herself (1 Cor 1:9,29-31; 2 Tim 1:9-11). However, having full knowledge of God's truthful revelation, is there any way of bringing accord between His revelation and humanity's observed history of "freely" making, withholding and reversing our daily decisions? How much of a role does God play? How much of a role does the Arch Deceiver play? How much of role do individuals around us play?
Like the man in Jn 9:1 and my nearsightedness, God allowed Israel to go into Egyptian enslavement "that the works of God might be displayed in him" (Jn 9:3). Like my nearsightedness which was corrected by thick, heavy, glass lenses, mounted in an ugly, black frame of indestructible plastic, the flawed minds (Dt 5:29; Mt 19:8; Rm 7:23-24) of the people of Israel were corrected by the "lenses" of God's Law (Rm 7:7,12), but which did not address the fundamental flaw of a misshaped eye acquired at birth (Heb 9:9-10). Israel became stuck on the short-term fix, and rejected God's BETTER PLAN for Israel and all the nations. He planned to REVERSE their CONGENITAL DEFECT, not just correct their vision with the "ugly glasses" of the Law (Rm 8:2-4; Eph 1:3-4)! That Sabbath by healing a man born blind, Jesus was making a declaration of His intention of reversing the hereditary curse of our messed-up minds (Lk 4:18,21; Heb 10:15-16). It is from this messed-up place that all our dietary, religious, time, marital/sexual, financial, educational, parental, political, social and environmental choices flow...yes, life itself (Prov 4:23).
Looking back on my 11 year-old self, I remember the first time I left the doctor's office wearing my new glasses. It was a sunny day and even though I'd been to that section of my city, I was looking all around like a tourist--there was so much more that I could now see! Being able to see, dulled the sting of being called "four eyes" by friends in my neighborhood and at school. The joy of clear-sightedness, made possible by ugly glasses made an active boy want more. Those glasses bounced and slid down my nose as I ran or played soccer, got wet and fogged up when I got caught in a tropical downpour. For the many times they fell, it was good that they were as durable as they were. Those glasses made me want more. The God of all the Earth wants to give us His best (Heb 8:6-8,10; Eze 11:19-20; Act 15:8-9). Should we settle for anything less?