Choices Today Are Decisions Tomorrow

Choices Today Are Decisions Tomorrow 

From the beginning of time God has given man the ability to choose his destiny. Placing Adam and Eve in the garden, the Lord told them they could eat of every tree of the garden “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17). Man had a choice. For a time he honored that law until Satan came in Genesis 3 and said, “Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden'" (Genesis 3:1)? The lie from Satan was to convince man he was not forbidden to do what he wanted and the choice was his and his alone to make. Choice was taken from the restrictions of God’s law to the freedom of man to reject God’s law and live for himself. Satan lied and man fell from the favor of the Lord and sin reigned in the hearts of men.

The devil continues to play the same mournful tune of rebellion to the will of God. He whispers in the ear that freedom is the key and choices made will never require payment. Eat, drink, be merry and live for life now for there are no decisions impacted by choices today. The truth is explained by Jesus in John 8:44 – “… the devil … was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.” The truth that will never change is that choices made today will impact decisions lived tomorrow. From the beginning of time the Lord has told man that in accordance with the natural law, “Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life” (Galatians 6:7-8).

Good choices today make for brighter days tomorrow. Joseph made the right choices throughout his life and was blessed in many ways (Genesis 39). David made a bad decision one day and suffered a life-time of regret (2 Samuel 11-12; Psalm 51). Daniel and his three friends made a crucial decision to reject the “king’s delicacies” in Daniel 1 that would serve them with courage and faith to face the execution of the wise men (Daniel 2), a fiery furnace (Daniel 3) and a den of lions (Daniel 6). If they had not made the right choice in Daniel 1 the other challenges they faced would have ended in failure.

Young people are told to live life to the fullest without the expectation there will be consequences. Alcohol, drugs, sexual freedom will not lead to productive lives but ruined families, guilt and lives filled with the misery that attends the sharpened tongue of Satan’s whispers. Wealth and prosperity are the golden trinkets that charm the hearts of people to plunge deep into debt denying the reckoning day when payments must be made. Lifestyles are accepted as pleasured fulfillment that only ends in the sludge of wasted life. When the devil finished with Adam and Eve the only thing they felt was shame and fear (Genesis 3:8-10).

The apostle Paul gave his benediction to ‘right choices’ when facing death. “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). His life had been about good choices. It is not so much what a man says in life but what a man says in death that marks his course of the kind of choices he made. Paul found his life a blessing because he chose God. What will you choose? It matters!