EVERY ACT COUNTS
Eccl. 12:13-14
A. Every choice we make in life becomes a part of our character.
What you chose to be
yesterday and the day before, and the day before that, is the
sum total of what you are today.
You are today what you thought about in the past and what your
parents allowed you to think about and to do.
a. The sum total of the whole matter will determine your outcome
in the day of judgment.
We live in a generation that tends to blur distinctions. Throw
everything into subjective areas where there are no absolutes.
President who redefined words so that he could do absolutely anything
he wanted and not have to bother with a guilty conscience.
I had a sociology professor at Missouri like that. No absolutes
of right or wrong, therefore there were no absolutes. Nothing
was Black and White only shades of gray in between.
Question. If a husband is faithful some of the time, he is not
unfaithful at all?.
God does not see things the way people things. His standards are
higher.
(1) There are two kinds of people in the world. Good and bad.
Those who lovingly
obey their God and those who stubbornly reject Him.
(2) Gods word talks about them in terms of absolute consequences.
Listen
carefully, Rom. 2:5?10; 6:16, Ever ask the question, How
do people get to be
the way they are? I can answer that question.
(b) Each of us is the product of decisions that we have made.
In the freedom of our wills
we have voluntarily thought, spoken, done the things that have
made us what we are today
Our characters are built up, not from our external circumstances,
but from what we have chosen to do with those circumstances Many
Bible Examples.
(B) King Saul and David, 1 Sam. 13:14. God told Saul, But
now your kingdom shall
not continue. The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His
own heart, and the Lord
has commanded him to be commander over His people, because you
have not kept
what the Lord commanded you.
(1) In 1 Sam. 15:28, he was told, The Lord has torn the
kingdom of Israel from you today, and has given it to another,
who is better than you.
(2) Mark it well: In Gods sight David was better than Saul
?? Not because of better circumstances, but because he had made
better choices.
(1) What does that say? We must accept responsibility for what
we have made of ourselves.
(2) We are, what we have chosen to be. We are self?made. Unfortunately,
most self?made people are often the product of unskilled labor.
2. Gal. 6:7, We reap what we sow. That is the unalterable
truth.
Decisions and choices have a cumulative effect ?? they tend to
"snowball."
Every decision and every act changes a person for better or worse.
With every choice you are building your character and a self that
will find it progressively more easy to act in certain ways and
more difficult to act in others.
With every choice people become more like God or more like Satan.
Jno. 8:44, 47, Jesus talks about this You are of your father
the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He does
not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When
he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a
liar and the father of it.....47 He who is of God hears God's
words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God."
b. Notice the contrast stated in Eph. 4:17?19, This is what
I speak from the Lord, that you
should no longer walk as the Gentiles walk, (Your walk is the
path you take as a result of
the choices you make) in the futility of their mind, having their
understanding darkened,
being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance
that is in them, because of
the hardening of their heart; who, being past feeling, (They chose
to live that way and
the accumulated result is that they) have given themselves over
to lewdness, to work all
uncleanness with greediness. Heb. 5:14, But solid
food (thats the mature ability to
make good solid decisions) belongs to those who are of full age,
(Full age means Mature)
that is, those who by reason of use (Stop and think before choosing)
have their senses
exercised to discern both good and evil. A life time of
right choices will enable you to
know the difference between Right and Wrong.
B. Immature children on a playground say, That didnt
count, I had my fingers crossed.
3. Matt. 12:36, In the day of judgmet you will give account
for every idle word you speak.
1. When God judges our lives, no such excuses will be accepted.
(1) Rom. 6:21, Paul ask a question of people who act foolishly
and carelessly toward God and His commands, "What fruit did
you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For
the end of those things is death." Where did it get you?
(2) If you are lost its not Gods fault. Youre
lost because of the choices you made in life.
(1) Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, "Sooner or later, we must
all sit down to a banquet of consequences."
(2) Never be guilty of saying, No. to God ?? Not even
once.
2. Thats the council of Heb. 12:25, See that you do
not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused
Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn
away from Him who speaks from heaven.
(1) God does not require larger steps of righteousness than we
can manage, only small steps taken in faith.
(2) Gods not looking for people who can do everything, but
for those who are willing to do what they can!
(1) Heaven will be the outcome if we learn to make choices that
lead in God's direction.
(2) Rom. 6:21?23.
(3) Life is serious business ?? it pays to live carefully ? Thats
the Holy Spirits counsel to each of us in Eph. 5:15-17,
Be very careful, then, how you live. Not as unwise but as
wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are
evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's
will is.
(4) Acts 20:32.
Spur - 5/13 /2001 am
|