The Need For Decisiveness
Matt. 12:30.

Our language has colorful expressions for indecisiveness: to be wishy?washy, to hem and haw, to beat around the bush, to straddle the fence.
Even Jesus described some as having “no root” in Matt. 13:20-21.
a. This phrase describes individuals who are spiritually unstable.
(A) Other scriptures do the same thing. Eph. 4:14.
(1) James 4:8.
The language is descriptive, pointed and straight to the point.
It tells us that In spiritual matters, as well as in more trivial things, the inability to make decisions — and, more important, to make those decisions stick — is dangerous.
(2) God asks you to use the freedom of your mind and choose to obey Him.
God challenges us to choose, to decide FOR or AGAINST Him, Josh. 24:15, “Choose this day whom you will serve...” 1 Kgs. 18:21. "How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him."
Jesus said the same thing in Matt. 12:30.,
(B) But we need more than just a one?time “decision” to obey. Faithfulness to God
requires constant determination, decisiveness, resoluteness.
The problem with many is that they have never fully made up their minds about God and so they have never really been converted to the Lord.
Guilty of “temporizing.” Temporize. “to compromise or act evasively in order to gain time, avoid argument, or postpone a decision” .
When it comes to deciding about God, we stall and engage in delaying tactics and for many it’s the great American “Round Tuit.”
(2) Indecisiveness is the same thing as hostility to God.
(1) Our character is the cumulative product of every “little” choice we have made.
(2) Few evil men because they set out with the malignant intent to defy God.
(3) Rivers become crooked because they follow the path of least resistance. And
that is exactly how men become crooked.
b. Did you know that many people’s character is formed by default rather than by decision?
(1) It’s possible to become what we are, by postponement and procrastination, rather than by purpose. That’s just another way of saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
(1) The Bible says a man is a fool if he postpones obedience to God, Matt. 7:24?27.
(1) Indecision, about God is an offensive, disgusting insult to the Lord.
(2) Rev. 3:15-16. The uncommitted are nauseating to the Lord
(2) Failure to make a decisive choice, says, “We are not fit for the kingdom ? That’s Jesus’ statement in Lk. 9:57?62.
(1) It boils down to finally making that noble decision. Ultimately there is no
Middle ground.
(2) To decide for the Lord means you have decided against him, Matt 6:24.
(B) We need to take Peter’s advice and “Gird Up Our Minds..” 1 Peter 1:13?14, “Now
prepare your minds for action; be self?controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to
be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to
the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.”
(3) It’s not hard once you make up your mind.

(1) What seems to be an impossible problem is solved when we see that the problem is only a tough decision waiting to be made.
(2) You don’t have to hit bottom and wallow in self-pity and dispare before you take control and start making sober decisions. You don’t have to be another prodigal son living like an animal in order to make a decision for God.
(4) Unmade decisions are ticking time bombs with eternal consequences.
(1) Jesus had to choose to die for our sins ? Phil. 2:5-8.
(2) In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was deciding, making up His mind to go to the Cross.
(3) In a sense, Gethsemane was more difficult for the Lord than Golgotha.
(4) Luke. 9:51. Once the decision is made, The rest is easy.
(5) When Jesus asks you to choose, He’s not asking you to do something He has not already done Himself. And what He did, He did not for Himself but for you.
(1) We have already wasted too much time trying to “have it both ways.”
(2) Heb. 4:7.
. (c) Acts 20: 32.

Spur - 6/10 /2001 pm