Choices

May 14, 2008

By Gary Rogers

Once I find something I like to eat, I’m devoted to that product. Honey Nut Cheerios are from heaven. A banana on top of Honey Nut Cheerios — along with my multiple vitamins and minerals — is my complete and balanced breakfast. The other day I ran out of Cheerios.

I despise grocery shopping, but I had to have my Cheerios. Do you know how many different brands and flavors and types of cereals there are in a large grocery store? The choice is overwhelming.

“Now choose life, so that you and your children may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19, NIV).

Do you know how many circumstances you encounter daily that tempt you to choose something other than life through Jesus Christ? We are bombarded with options that are contrary to our life in Christ. Some choices appeal to our weaknesses. Other choices are pushed on us. Some are presented as logical and the only reasonable option. The sad reality is once we open the box of a sinful choice, the contents never match the enticement.

Jesus is the source of true life (John 1:4). Jesus is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). Jesus is the life-giving Bread (John 6:51). Jesus is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25). Everyone who has Jesus, has life.

When you really look at it, there is only one choice. If you choose life, you choose Jesus. What a blessing it is to make it through all the options and get to the One choice that is worthy of complete loyalty and devotion.

— Gary Rogers is senior pastor of First Assembly of God in Coweta, Okla.