What is the most intelligent decision you’ll ever make?
Identity
I want you to know something very important about your identity.
Identity is critical because it provides a foundational sense of self, stability, and purpose, acting as the “glue” that holds you together amidst life’s challenges.
Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash
You were not born a winner, and you certainly weren’t born a loser. You were born a chooser.
That means God gave you the beautiful gift to freely make decisions. Every day, in small and big ways, you get to choose kindness or cruelty, courage or fear, honesty or excuses. Those choices are what shape your life.
Only humans get to make thoughtful decisions like this. Animals follow instinct, but you can think, pray, and choose wisely. Over time, your choices will define you far more than your talents, your grades, or what others say about you.
You also carry more potential than you can currently see. God has placed gifts, strength, and purpose inside you that are still unfolding. Never believe that your past limits your future. With God’s help, your very best days are ahead of you.
Your Centre
You get to choose what you will centre your life on.
Relationships. Career. Happiness. Purpose. All of these are good but there is one thing better by long shot. When you make this one thing your centre, all the other good things revolve around it. And not only revolve around it, they are shaped by it.
At some point in your life, you’ll have some encourage you to set your priorities.
Perhaps a teacher in school, or a motivational speaker or even your first boss. Or your dad and mom. They’ll challenge you to think, “What’s number one in my life?” “What’s in second place?” Etc, etc. And that will become a very hard exercise when you begin to think about it. Do you evaluate the priority by the amount of time you spend in it? If so, you’ll see that you spend far more time in your career than you do with people who are important to you. Do you evaluate it by what society values? If you go that route you’ll feel pulled from so many sides as to what should be your priority.
That’s why answering the question of what’s at the centre of your life is most important.
Contemplating these things requires focus and decisions. There is one decision I’ve never regretted. In fact I’d say it’s the most intelligent decision I’ve ever made. It was a decision based on reason, analysis, and faith. You’ll find in life that the first two are valued in Western culture but the third one is a little rarer. In fact, it exists on the outside of most rational and scientific contexts.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
One Decision
The most intelligent decision I’ve ever made was to believe in God.
To believe there is a creator God, who is responsible for every microbe in the universe. And that decision gets narrowed down even more to believing what is true about God. There are many gods and beliefs about those gods. When you choose to believe, which ones should you embrace?
Here are mine.
I believe that God loves me and he loves you. He loves everyone. His love is unconditional. That means God loves you as you are. You can never do anything that will make God love you more than He does now. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. Your purpose is to glorify God and serve him forever.
God created this world for His pleasure. We often refer to God in the masculine but God is a spirit. In the Bible, God is always referred to in the masculine but that’s for a whole other post. God is spirit.
God created the universe to be a perfect place. He created the earth and everything on the earth. He created humans, a man and a woman. They were perfect. He created them to live forever.
God gave his creation the greatest power in the universe. The power to make decisions. God gave his creation free will. That means you decide how to live. You are at liberty to choose.
That original power came in a perfect world, where God’s creation was intended to live eternally, with freedom to do anything except one thing. And the one thing that was not permissible was the one thing that became creation’s downfall.
Heavy Thoughts
OK, here comes some heavy thinking that I’ll expand on later. It’s a summary of what I believe about God, the way things are, and the way they can be.
The the first book of the Bible, God said, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” Genesis 2:16,17
And the human decision to disobey led to sin and sin led to death. Not physical death; that would come later. Death was in the relationship between God and humankind. As it were, creation turned their back on the Creator. But note, the Creator never turned His back on creation.
The root of all conflict, hate, prejudice, racism, murder, war, and relational breakdown emanated from that single decision.
But that relationship can be reconciled
And that’s why Jesus came into the world. That’s what Christmas is all about. Jesus is God’s gift to you. Jesus is the Son of God and he became like us, God in the flesh, so that we could see God. And not only see God by be saved from our sin by God.
Jesus was crucified as an innocent man, a perfect man, in our place. That’s what Easter is all about. Then he was raised from the dead and is alive today.
Follow Me
“Follow me” is is the foundation of what we know as Christianity.
Jesus used the invitation, “Follow me.” He repeated often in the New Testament section of the Bible.
Follow me is an invitation to movement, direction, and ongoing action.
It isn’t a one-time decision.
It’s a daily reorientation of your entire life.
He said it to
fishermen — they left their nets.
a tax collector — he left his table.
a rich young man — he couldn’t do it.
Every time Jesus said, “Follow me,” something was left behind.
Every single time.
What is called the gospel can’t be reduced to a single prayer.
Say these words.
You’re in.
Jesus never described salvation that way.
He described it as a narrow road. (Matthew 7:14)
A cross carried daily. (Luke 9:23)
Real faith produces real following.
The question Jesus asked is:
“Who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15)
And then: “What are you doing with your answer?”
You don’t accept the sun.
You walk in its light or you don’t.
Following Jesus is the direction your life is moving today.
When you centre your life on following Jesus, all the other good things in life begin to revolve around that choice.
What do you need to do to make that happen?
Yes
Say yes to God. Yes, I believe that you love me, that Jesus died for me, and he is alive from the dead so that I can follow him. I choose to turn from following my own way and living my own life and begin to follow Jesus.
And that’s an intelligent decision.
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