Focus: Choose God!

Text: Josh.24:15

"And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."

The power to choose is a God-given privilege to man, but what matters most is what man chooses. It is not enough to make choices, but we must be wise in making the right choices. Experience teaches us that our choices make or mar us, and that means that choices certainly produce consequences.

Someone did a study of two men, namely, Jonathan Edwards and Max Dukes. Jonathan Edwards was a man who chose the path of godliness, but Max Dukes was known as a notorious criminal and a hard living man. He did not see the need to involve God in the way he lived his life.

The study revealed that Jonathan Edwards had 1,394 descendants, and out of that number:

*13 were college presidents

*65 were professors

*60 were prominent lawyers

*32 were noted authors

*90 were physicians

*200 were ministers of the gospel, and,

*300 were good farmers

That is the lasting effect or impact of a goodly choice and godly living.

On the other hand, Max Dukes had 903 descendants, out of which:

*145 were confirmed drunkards

*300 were delinquents

*90 were prostitutes

*185 had evil diseases, and over,

*100 spent time in prison

That is the disastrous effect of godless choices and of a life lived away from God. The choices we make today will certainly bear fruits tomorrow, good or bad, as another had said, "Sooner or later we will all sit down to a banquet of consequences." Billy Graham made a powerful point that "our sins catch up with us, and they magnify our capacity to cause suffering."

Save tomorrow by making good and godly choices today!

Choose God and His prescribed way of living! Choose God and reject Satan! Choose life and reject death! Choose blessing and reject the curse! Choose good and reject evil! Choose heaven and reject hell! Choose love and reject hate! Choose light and reject darkness! Choose God's truth and reject the lies of Satan! Choose wisdom and reject foolishness! Choose spirituality and reject carnality! Moses said to Israel, "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you LIFE and DEATH, BLESSING and CURSING: therefore CHOOSE LIFE, that both thou and thy seed may live" (Dt.30:19).

Let it be known to you today that choices have consequences. The good or evil that men do will not only live after them; it will live with them. Choose and keep choosing rightly all the time!

by Bishop Moses E. Peter