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) God’s 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 God’s 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 (that’s 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 didn’t 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 it’s not God’s fault. You’re 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. That’s 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) God”s 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 ? That’s the Holy Spirit’s 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