Making The Right Choices

 

“The Choice” by unknown author. “I dreamed that it was Judgement Day, it hit me pretty hard. To meet my Maker face to face, and receive my reward. As I stood there before Him, He sadly shook His head. He turned the pages of the Book, and I was filled with dread! He looked me squarely in the eye; I knew I’d lost the race. Too many times I’d made the choice, and God took second place.”

A few years ago, I received a call from a lady at the hospital, presumably a staff nurse. She said a patient wanted to see a church of Christ preacher. I went to the hospital to see a man I had never seen before. He was near death and wanted me to say a prayer for him. He then related that he was a member of the Church but had not been in a church building for years. But now at the end of his life, he wanted to have a prayer. I took his hand and prayed as he requested. I’m not anyone’s judge, but I have a very difficult time with those who want to live apart from the Lord until the last minute of life. I truly fear for their soul. I know God forgives when we repent (1 John 1) and I pray that prayer is enough repentance.

But what about all the years away from the Body of Christ? What about those person’s he might have reached with the gospel? I can’t help but worder if a deathbed prayer is true repentance. We are told to “redeem the time” (Ephesians 5:15-16). And surely this person I visited had not done so. Regardless, such a person’s soul is in the hands of God and God is the judge of us all (Acts 10:42). But it is wise not to wait; death may come unannounced.

[1 John 2:2] “And He Himself (Jesus) is the propitiation (our atoning sacrifice) for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.”  “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone” (Hebrews 2:9).

If Jesus is every lost person’s Savior, why isn’t every lost person saved? The answer to this question is very easy. The Lord Jesus saves only those who respond to His call to salvation, which is the gospel (2 Thessalonians 2:14). He saves only those who get into Him and put Him on in water baptism (Romans 6:3; Galatians 3:27). Baptism that puts one into Christ, and by which one puts on Christ has to be preceded by one’s faith in Christ as the Son of God, the Savior which came down from above (John 8:21-24). Baptism must also be preceded by repentance of sin, and by confession that Jesus is God’s Son (Acts 2:38; Romans 10:9-10).

Today you have the power within your grasp to change this horrible nightmare of judgement into that blessed assurance of a home in heaven with God for eternity. Yes, you have the ability to change your destiny, your eternal home, heaven or hell, by the choices you choose to make – today and the rest of your life. In a hundred years it won’t matter what kind of car you drove, how big your house was, or even how well you could swing a golf club or throw a rope. What will matter is how true one has been to the Bible.

John 12:47-50 tells us that God’s Word, the Bible, will judge us. “And if anyone hears my words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him – the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken on My own authority, but the Father who sent Me gave Me command, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak.”

Be sure you’re making the right choices, for your choices will dictate your home for eternity.