What’s the most important choice you ever made in your life? Think about it, what is the one thing you deliberately chose that had the greatest impact on your life?

Was it your major in college? Your career? Your spouse?

We make choices every day. Some are important and some are not.

Color of socks. Paper or plastic? Coke or Pepsi. These choices have no real impact.

Republican or Democrat? Save or spend? Army or Navy? These choices can have a life long impact in defining our destiny.

The choice that Moses put before the Israelites is a most critical one. It’s a matter of life or death!  Listen to Deuteronomy 30:19,20a from the New Living Translation:

“Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make.  Oh, that you would choose life, that you and your descendants might live!  Choose to love the Lord your God and to obey him and commit yourself to him, for he is your life.“

Moses calls for three specific decisions here:

Love God

Obey God

Commit to God

What do they mean?

To love God is to put God first in your life. To love God is to be devoted to God and the things of God. 

What’s the alternative? It is not to hate God. No, the other choice is to love self, to live for self, to do the things of self. Even in our relationships with other humans, our spouses, children, family and friends, the choice is not love or hate, it is love for them or love of self. Every worthwhile relationship requires us to give up self for the sake of the relationship.

To choose self over God is sin. It is the first sin, and maybe it’s the only one. Every other sin has its root in this one. Some have said that this is sin with a capital “S”. Everything else is just behavior. Sin says I don’t need God; I can be God myself.

So the first decision is: God or self?

To obey God is to decide to live by God’s rules. It means that we apply the principles of the ten commandments to everything we do. Love and respect God. Love and respect and be faithful to family. Treat others with respect and kindness and justice. Those are God’s rules.

The alternative is to live without rules, the way the rest of the world lives. The world’s way is “every man for himself”. The world’s way says I’ve got mine so who cares about you. The world’s way says I can do anything I want, any time I want as long as it makes me feel good.

The world’s way completely ignores the consequences of sin, and completely ignores God’s plan for humanity, which is for us humans to live in peace and harmony and fulfillment and abundance  and worship TOGETHER.

To live the world’s way is sin. The bible teaches that the wages of sin is death. The world’s way leads to death. Look around. Wars, poverty, abortions, sexual perversion, alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence. These are all the fruits of sin. 

I wonder, why doesn’t the church point this out any more? I know many pastors who do, but there are so many who don’t.

Why doesn’t the church stand united in prophetic voice denouncing the decadence that destroys life, destroys families, destroys nations? In their desire to accommodate the culture and politically correct thinking, the leaders of many denominations are failing the world when they proclaim love and understanding but omit the reality that the root cause of society’s problems is sin. Without the acknowledgement of sin, there can be no repentance. And without repentance, there can be no saving grace. So the religious leaders of today are not showing love by ignoring sin. Instead they are demonstrating their indifference. And this leads to the destruction of the very people they are called on to minister to. Listen, there is absolute truth. There is just one way to God. There are horrible consequences of sin. There is judgment. To deny this is to deny the truth. God is both the God of love and the God of judgement. But the people have to make a choice. Chuck Swindoll once said something very profound. He said “The one who loves you the most tells you the truth.” Your mother told you the truth.  “If you touch that hot stove you’ll get burned.” “If you play in traffic you could get killed.” “If you drink your milk, you’ll get strong bones.” God’s word says, “I love you. If you accept my love, you’ll live. If you reject me, you will die.”

To commit to God is to put your faith in God for all things. It is to trust God to provide for all your needs. Now that doesn’t mean we can all quit our jobs and expect food on the table. It does mean that when we love God and obey God, we can step into life’s situations with confidence that God will provide a way. The bible teaches that we don’t have to worry about the things we need, because God already knows we need them.

The alternative is to trust other gods. Like trusting our own physical strength, our skills, to give us our daily bread. Like trusting our career to provide for a finer home and newer cars. Like trusting the stock market to provide financial security. Like trusting the government to do right. Like trusting bombs and missiles and armies to provide national security. Now, we do need to work, and we should use our money wisely and save for the future, and we have to have armies to defend our nation, but if we trust in these things alone, we are committing sin. We are called to trust in God, and to commit ourselves wholly to him.

So here we have Moses’ challenge to the people:

Love God

Obey God

Commit to God

Those are the decisions we are called on to make. To choose wisely means to choose life, to choose otherwise is to choose death.

Do we face that same choice today? Yes, we do. You want death? The apostle Paul wrote in the letter to the Romans, verses1:20-23 (ESV):

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

You want life? The answer is in the Gospel of John:

John 20:30-31 (ESV) Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

So for us, the choice is clear. Life or death. God or self. God’s way or the world’s way. Accept Christ or deny him. What have you chosen?

The church is Christ’s body and His voice in the world today. What will we say to the world? Will we be bold enough to say as Moses did: “Today I have given you the choice between life and death…”

Choose life.  Choose Christ.