Choosing Well.
What we think ON matters.
What we think ABOUT matters.
What we run FROM in our mind matters.
Our brain is a muscle, and muscles untrained are weak. Muscles once strong, left to do as they please, become fatigued and even atrophy.
The heart is a muscle…Have we trained it to love others?
The legs are filled with muscles…Have we trained our legs to run toward God?
The arms are given muscles…Have we trained our arms to serve others?
Once I was blind, but now I see—the TRUTH.
Once I was lost, but now I am found—through JESUS.
What does that really mean?
How should those two words (TRUTH & JESUS)…
Affect me,
Affect how I move,
Affect what I do,
Affect what I say,
Affect what I don’t speak.
Affect how I react,
and Affect what & how I think?
Has the TRUTH (of GOD) changed me?
Has JESUS (death & resurrection) changed me?
Every Tuesday and Thursday, I race west across the parkway to the university where I meet together with 50+ students. Some of these precious ones climb to the fourth floor and others descend to the first floor to study (with me): Grammar, Writing, Reading, and Life. Up and Down; and also, Down and Up. Constantly, I find myself climbing and descending a staircase.
Each day, after lunch, I can take a brisk walk across campus, or I can take the short walk back to the office and sit down.
Every morning, I can park close to Carter Hall, or I can select a space to park my Subaru and walk ten minutes to class.
As I teach these young minds facing me in class, I can choose to interact, to learn from them as they learn English, to care about their struggles…Or I can sit and deliver the “content” to them, never caring about the person but only about the subject.
The choice is mine (ALWAYS) to make.
Is this not also true of life? !!!
We can allow our bodies, our minds, our actions, our thoughts, our reactions, and our lives to descend toward the base things OR we can allow them (our whole bodies) to rise up with Christ Jesus our LORD.
The choice is mine to make.
The choice is yours to make.
The choice is ours (to make daily).
To make Today.
To make THIS DAY!
What will we choose?
Then tomorrow, we must ask the same question for the brand-new day, and we continue this question/answer pattern until the day the LORD leads us home.
Truly, the CHRISTIAN Walk is pretty simple, but do not believe my words. No!!! Always believe the Word of God!!!
“If indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus,
(Philippians 4: 21-25)
that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit,
and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind,
and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. [That is…put on Jesus…who willingly left the glory of heaven….to take the form of man…to bring salvation to the world….to reveal to each one of us….the TRUTH of GOD]“
Walking the Christian walk is a daily decision, not a one-time decision.
In the book of Isaiah we read:
“For this says the LORD, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited),
(Isaiah 45: 18-19 & 22)
“I am the LORD, and there is none else.
I have not spoken in secret,
In some dark land;
I did not say to the offspring of Jacob,
‘Seek Me in a waste place’;
I, the LORD, speak righteousness,
Declaring things that are upright. . . .
Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth;
For I am God, and there is no other.”
Walking with God must be intentional.
Living for God must be on purpose, within His purpose.
Exercising our right TO BE CHANGED, TO LIVE CHRIST-LIKE, TO BE CHRISTIAN Requires our Whole Self, to CHOOSE WELL.
Recorded in the New Testament, we find Paul writing to the Christians living in Philippi.
“Finally, brethren,
(Philippians 4: 8)
Whatever is TRUE.
Whatever is HONORABLE.
Whatever is RIGHT.
Whatever is PURE.
Whatever is LOVELY.
Whatever is of GOOD REPUTE.
If there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”