Choosing God's Side
But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. . . . But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD. (Joshua 24:15 NIV)
The points at which God's way and man's intersect are likely to be four (though there may be others), and we will usually find our differences with God to occur somewhere in these four areas. . . .
Second, our moral standards. There are probably as many ideas of righteousness as there are people in the world, and it would be futile to argue that one is better than another. The test is not which code is best but whether or not any code agrees with the Scriptures. In the Christian Scriptures, the Lord of the whole earth declares His own moral will for mankind, and it is profound wisdom to seek it and conform to it. Otherwise, we are at the mercy of our own deceitful hearts. For all men of faith, God's will is righteousness. The believing soul will not argue about it; he will accept it and bring the controversy to an end.
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The third point of possible controversy is in our way of life. This embraces the whole of our lives on earth as decided by our basic moral ideas. Our way of life is simply our moral code in its daily outflow.
The fourth is our plans. The Christian who has in principle accepted God's truth as his standard of conduct and has submitted himself to Christ as his Lord, may yet be tempted to lay his own plans and even fight for them when they are challenged by the Word of God or the inner voice of the Spirit. We humans are a calculating, planning race, and we like to say, "Tomorrow I will . . ." But our Heavenly Father knows us too well to trust our way to our own planning, so He very often submits His own plans to us and requires that we accept them. Right there a controversy is sometimes stirred up between the soul and God. But we had better not insist on our own way. It will always be bad for us in the long run. God's way is best.
Prayer
Lord, I want to live on Your side--all day every day. I can only do it through Your enablement.
Thought
Our daily living is the most accurate indicator of our true moral standards and life priorities. On Sunday we may pretend to be on God's side. It is our life living the rest of the week that vividly portrays whose side we are really on.
