Life is full of decisions. One makes them every day, and much more often than you may think. You may not have considered it, but you make a decision with every thought. You decide to think on this and not to think on that, to entertain this thought and to dismiss that thought. We are not aware of this choosing because most thoughts have been dealt with before, and unless we change a decision, we automatically accept, or reject, the same thoughts as we did in the past.
There is process that goes on that the Word describes as “hardening our hearts”. A time when a particular thought has been rejected enough times that you no longer hear the thought when it is presented to you. This can be good in the form of protection, or bad in that it can cause one to live in darkness. Both of these results are resultant of a decision, or repeated decisions, that a person makes in his life. Jesus was aware of this trait of man for, in scripture, He repeatedly says, “Let him, who has ears to hear, hear.”
Paul talks about us becoming transformed by the renewing of our mind by the Word of God. This means that we will change our way of thinking to correspond to the truth revealed by the Word, and that many decisions we have made in the past will have to be reviewed in light of these revelations. It is amazing to the new believer how the Scriptures open up as his mind is being renewed in the Word. The decisions that we made in the past, when reviewed and changed, open one’s mind to see where he was limited and where he blinded before.
At first, there is so much that we are willing to change, and in changing we are enabled to see so much that we could not see before. Therefore, we are full of joy.
As we grow, we come across decisions, that we made, that we are “less willing to change” because they are a part of our established thinking and desires that we stubbornly “want to” keep. We will try to salvage these thoughts by trying to work the Word around them. We will find others that agree with our desired creed of salvage and justify our position or actions.
Yet if we truly desire the Lord and His Will in our lives, we will eventually have to set these thoughts aside and replace them with the Word.
It is only when we identify ourselves with Him that we can truly enter into an intimate relationship with God.
“Jesus answered and said to him, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.” (John 14:23)
Notice all the ‘wills’ in that declaration of Christ’s!
It is not so much a promise to be obtained, but a living reality of the Word that abides in you. The greater amount of Word within, the greater awareness of His and the Father’s presence within. The greater awareness of His presence, the more intimate relationship you are able to enjoy. There is place of intimacy of knowing His spiritual presence, and with Him comes a hunger for the Word.
In closing, I would like to share a song that also has as its topic the decisions and choices we make. Perhaps, beside this article, the Spirit will exhort you through this song he gave me years ago. It is really a little sermon in song.
Here is the link:
A Choice To Make – Elizabeth Ann Smith – Receive From Me
If unable to hear the song at this time, I am also inserting the lyrics that repeat in the song here, so they can be pondered:
Lyrics:
We must question if a choice to make
Is God’s will or our own…
Does the Word of God say anything on this?
Or do we know?
We must seek His face
And inquire what to do
Finding out what pleases God
For He knows what we may not know
And man can risk his life if not in covenant with God…
This we know
This we know