29
Sep '18
Information for Good Decisions
29
Sep '18
As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen.“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” At once they left their nets and followed Him. Mark 1:16-18
My mother was an avid reader of Consumer Reports magazine. She would keep old copies of it so that when it came time to shop for something, she could pull up one of the old articles giving ratings on various brands, and then weigh cost and quality to what would ultimately be her decision. She passed that on to me, but I was not the one who enjoyed having magazines laying all over the household. However as kids say nowadays, “There’s an app for that”. Thus, finding brands and researching on them right down to the model number became easy. I love my microwave oven that we replaced years ago because it was that good. It gave me this sense of surety and confidence that my decision would work out just fine because I had enough information.
The decision to follow Christ was a decision I made just about fifteen years ago. However, one might ask what took me so long? It took me a while to figure out that Jesus wanted me to follow Him. When you are an imperfect person who saw His followers as perfect, you do not believe you are worthy of such a blessing. Thus, God had to provide me with a lot of information. Through His watching over me, He loved and protected me. He gave me scriptures through devotions, and words of encouragement through followers. Thus when the time came to make the decision, I was ready to follow. The choice was easy because much like my mother taught me when finding the right brand, God had shown me His goodness, love, and finally, His grace. So the decision was easy.
Making choices for Christ is easy once you have the right information. This sounds like a very simple and easy Devotion to take in. However, it is not the information that is difficult. The application and practice to come to the decision is. Our life is a constant struggle to make good decisions because of our sinful nature. As Paul so well put, “I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.” (Romans 7:19) This is the challenge we have as followers. We all fail in some degree or another. This is why Christ’s sacrifice was necessary. We alone could not cover our failures, and through Him, we are made perfect. Thus, we must always remember that following Christ, while an easy choice, is a challenging journey if we do not have practices that ensure our walk of faith stays true to His word. Understanding this provides us with the information needed to make good faith based decisions that allow us to walk as Simon and Andrew did, trusting in Jesus without hesitation.
Our choice to follow means embracing the adventure that God lays before us. The journey of faith is one that is filled with choices that have both blessings and at times heartache. But Jesus wants us to know that no choice is without God’s watchful and loving eyes there to help and protect us. We do not ever get to either know or understand this unless we have chosen to take up His cross and follow Him. So let us always remember Jesus Christ as our savior as the foundation of all choices, and utilize the information we’ve gathered in our journey of faith going forward.
What information are you needing from Christ today? What decisions might you need to wait on God for? My prayer is that we trust God as our source of information to make good decisions. Amen.
Kent
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Wonderful information, so tried and true.
Praying these blogs reach many people and will be encouraged by them and I want to encourage each of you as you share with us bits and pieces of your faith walk.
God bless you.