Christian Living

---

Larry Lilly's Letter Tuesday January 16, 2007

For the next several months my Sunday morning sermons are based around the theme, "Life Defining Decisions." These decisions are thumbnail sketches of Bible characters each of whom made some tough decisions, but who are heralded as great ones of the faith. I am fascinated by the ramifications of most of these decisions which we read about, say hmmm, and charge right on through life with hardly another thought into the often eternal implications of apparently simple decisions.

Media ministers often convey the idea that all suffering is the result of poor decisions, and you will learn to make better decisions your life will be better on earth. This teaching seems to be true on the surface concerning the mundane things of earth. If you decide to pay the electric bill, your good choice will keep the company from turning off the electricity. You made a good, and wise choice. And so it goes with most things in life.

However many things come our way simply because God is sandpapering the rough spots in our life, and refining us as the smelter's fire the gold.

When Moses made his defining decision to follow the Lord by identifying with the enslaved Jews, he suffered horribly. Imagine the descent from the possible heir to the throne of Pharaoh in Egypt, to living as a shepherd on the backside of the desert. Moses went from a palace to the life of a desert nomad. It's an interesting read in Hebrews 11:23-29 in that God credits Moses with the wise, life defining decisions and does not mention the many negative decisions Moses made along the way. It seems as though God is majoring on the majors in the life and Moses and putting the stupid ones behind His back, or perhaps in the depths of the sea. His thumbnail sketch in Hebrews read like a Christian who decided for Christ and then 1st John 1:9 has been very active in his daily life. The panorama of Moses in Hebrews gives me some encouragement!!

Multitudes of men and women made the life defining decision to obey God and paid a horrible price on earth living in holes in the ground, hunted and hounded as though they were animals, yet God says the world was not worthy of them.

I know of no way to teach you how to make God honoring decisions that will exempt you from suffering. Sometimes good choices have painful results. Jesus, the Son of God obeyed the Father's will and left the ivory palaces and was born in a barn, walked the low places of earth, with no place to lay his head, was spit upon by the creation of His own hand, creatures who nailed their creator to a cruel Roman cross, with every intention of burning His body on the dump, prevented by Joseph offering his personal tomb. So where do we get the idea that obedience always means earthly blessing? Of that it were true!

The teachers of God's word must return to the truth that most of the blessings associated with obeying God have eternal promises of great blessing and the promise of inner peace here below. James Russell Lowell wrote:

“Once to every man and nation

Comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of truth with falsehood,

For the good or evil side.”

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2007 Use with credit

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE