Right and Wrong Choices

I met a man about 20 years ago who had retired young and was looking for something new to do for a living. His former job had been exciting but the lure of retirement looked appealing, until his retirement investments turned sour.  He had to find an additional source of income.  He attended several seminars, hoping to find something, but in each case, it turned out to be a dead end.  Finally he went to an investment seminar and spent the entire day listening to several speakers with slide presentations, all of them talking above his head, until the very last speaker of the seminar. He spoke only a few minutes and ended his message with these words, "All you need to learn from today's seminar is simple and easy.  Rich people do things that make money, poor people don't."

Needless to say, my friend left that seminar thinking he had wasted his day, and his enrollment money. A few days later, as his wife was commenting on the weight he had gained since retirement, it came to him. He remembered what the speaker from the seminar had said, applied it to his own situation, and began marketing health food supplies aimed at losing weight. His new slogan was, "Thin people do things to stay thin, fat people don't." (I know, I need some personal application here, too.)

The more I have thought about his new business, based on nothing but common sense and the willingness to take the risk, I also wish to change the wording a bit, apply the principle and tell you my new slogan.   "A successful Christian is one who allows God's direction over every aspect of his life and  the  lukewarm Christian doesn't."

So we have three slogans, each indicating how the reactions of people to opportunities in life, can lead to successful rewards or the comfort and ease of mediocrity.  I am not being critical of people who are poor or overweight or both. I am making the application of the truth that many of us can overcome these things, and even be a powerful tool in God's hands if we make better choices.  

We have recently been studying the topic of prayer, and if we as Christians neglect God in that aspect, it becomes a routine thing for us to be weak in our prayer lives.  Likewise, when we go for days or weeks without reading the word, it's no wonder we don't know much about the Bible. 

The same can be said for our habits in attending worship, our visits to the sick, our ministering to the homeless, and our helping those who need our help.  On and on the list can go. If our commitment to spiritual matters is not reflected by our deeds, then we are losing the battle against Satan. James says it like this, "Your faith without deeds is dead."  

From what I read in the Bible, our deeds can never earn our way into heaven. We are still saved by God's grace.  However, the deeds we perform for God, will bring blessing and testimony to those we help, for the love we show them in some simple act of service. Go read my slogan again. I need to read it often, and I pray that we can all make the right choices and applications to our lives.

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