Wednesday, February 7, 2024

February 7, 2024

Deuteronomy 30.15 (NIV)
“See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction.”
We are free to choose whether we will do right or wrong, but we are not free to decide what is right or wrong.*
We often say, “I had no choice in the matter,” when what we really mean is, “I wasn’t happy with any of my options.” Seldom are we in the position of having no choice at all. No one chooses when and where he is born but soon thereafter we begin making decisions, if not about what to do or where to go, at least about our internal responses and attitudes.

The smart ones among us will learn early on that choices have consequences. We can’t always know all the possible consequences but we learn to make informed choices. In the case of the Israelites to whom this verse was addressed, the choices and the consequences were clear.

Their choices? Love and obey God, or don’t. Clear and simple. The consequences? Life and prosperity, or death and destruction. Some consequences are short-term, such as Jesus’ prophecy that his disciples would be persecuted. But the long-term consequences are the same for us today as they were for the Children of Israel in Moses’ day: life or death.
Like fools we trade God for powers, and so exchange life for death.*


*Quote sources available upon request.

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