Making Christian Choices

When we look around at the world we live in, making Christian choices can be very hard.  Wherever we look, it seems that people whose actions are not Christian are faring better than we are.  We know the Bible tells us that Jesus is the way that is best, yet many who  do not act Christian seem to have more of everything the world hails as "best."

I cannot speak for those who are not Christian in behavior to suggest that their lives are actually worse than a Christian life.  I can only speak from my own experiences.  My life as a secular businessman brought me a lot of money (ill spent and definitely in debt), travel (away from my family where I drank too much), and some fame (fleeting at best). By the world's standards I was successful.  Yet, my life was a mess.  When I found God had remained steadfast but I had not, I lost all that measured me as a success but came into a life of peace and service with others.  Now my life doesn't seem a problem in any way. I would gladly go back and start over making the Christian life my life for those years I squandered seeking the rewards of the world.

I was fortunate to spend many years serving  in a ministry called KAIROS, which takes God's Word into prisons around the world.  I have seen powerful drug dealers choose beatings from their gang so that they might choose Christianity over crime for the remainder of their life.  I have seen men face death and life imprisonment with dignity and peace because they chose to face the consequences of their bad choices by becoming Christians. I cannot say for them why they, at that time, chose a Christian life.  I can say it appeared to me that they found something in Christianity that they couldn't get in the world.

If we make the mistake of comparing our lives with others who make more, do more, and have more, we might always feel as if we have come out second best or even last.  But if we simply compare our life as Christians against our lives without Jesus, we can value ourselves more appropriately and understand why God wants us where we are and how we are.  Try to make your life become a habit of doing right and avoiding wrong, a habit of putting others and self on an equal basis. Choosing God is never a bad choice. God is faithful when the world is not.