I was fortunate to speak to two different groups of kids this past Thursday and then again on Saturday night. Both events honored youth who had distinguished themselves as being good citizens in one way or another, and I can tell you that coming from the environment that they live in, it wasn’t easy for some of them to do so. In some cases they helped the police solve crimes and did so at great peril to their own well being which makes their contributions all that more impressive.
The theme on Thursday night was, “Do the right thing”. I thought about this for quite some time on the long drive back home, and I considered how this motto should not just be limited to some at risk students, but how badly it’s needed in society at large.
I told the kids that all of life is comprised of choices. We can do the right thing or the wrong thing. The way God setup our Universe was similar to the old style of putting “if statements” in computer programs. The programmer would add a machine readable command line that would tell the computer “if” this happens, “then” do this. So “if” you pressed the “Space” button on your keyboard, “then” the machine would add a space.
Similarly “if” we make the right choices “then” we are rewarded, and “if” we make the wrong choices “then” we suffer the consequences of that action. The Bible refers to it as “reaping what we sow”, and hastens to add that nothing escapes God’s watchful eye.
What do you suppose God wants the most from us?
Obedience?
Well surely that is part of it, but I believe that He wants our love more than anything. He loves us with all of His heart and wants the same in return from us. If we love Him, then we will want to obey His commands to the best of our ability, even if obeying His commands goes contrary to what we want to do and/or hold dear to our hearts.
Sometimes we know something is wrong, but we just cannot seem to give it up. Recently we conducted a wedding at Honey Lake and unfortunately one of the attendees was inebriated. He was in fact enrolled in rehab at the time of the wedding and yet before the night’s festivities had barely gotten started he was already drunk as a skunk and acting like an idiot in front of his friends and family.
He knew what he was doing was wrong, because he came up to me and told me as much. He told me he had read my book and was modeling his life after mine and was going to be a minister. That was nothing but so much poppycock and I don’t know why he even bothered telling me all of that baloney. He deliberately made the decision to drink, knowing full well that he was a full blown alcoholic and it would not end well. It was indeed the wrong choice for him and sure enough he got loaded and made a complete fool out of himself in front of his entire family.
Yes it is difficult to make decisions that result in our having to give up something that we might hold near and dear to our heart or even love, but no one who has ever sacrificed their personal desires in order to obey the Lord has ever come up on the short end of the stick. Conversely, if we ignore the Lord’s call to obedience, then bad things can and will most certainly happen. Consider that God tells us what to do and what not to do because He loves us. He knows that by our making the wrong decisions that it will adversely affect our lives and He doesn’t want that for us.
He wants us to lead happy, productive, prosperous, peace and joy filled lives full of love. And that can only be accomplished by following His rules and making the right choices.
In the end we must surrender to God; hopefully we do so out of love and not fear, but the Bible does say the following:
Proverbs 9:10
Fear of the LORD is the foundation of wisdom. Knowledge of the Holy One results in good judgment.