Ephesians 5: 14

Johnny Douglas

Will I? Won't I? Burger King or McDonald's? There's nothing like decisions like these to reveal the difficulty of indecision!!

Who doesn't like their bed! Who has sometimes groaned and whimpered about the will to move!!? Like those who lie in bed not summoning the will to arise, we sometimes make our lives more difficult, and ourselves more miserable, by not deciding what to do about God. Into this and so much more,..... God says: "Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light." Ephesians 5: 14 Shrinking from the difficulty of these great or well,.. lesser decisions, we plunge ourselves into the much greater difficulty of indecision.

I reckon we face a basic choice in life: either we accept the pain of discipline right now, or we suffer the pain of regret later on. If we take what seems to be the course of least resistance, ducking difficult choices when they first come up, what we find in the long run is that our lives sink in a swamp of discouragement and deep sadness. Rather than accumulating a treasury of memories that enrich our later years, we find that we've built a museum of regrets. One of my life heroes David Borden, said at the end of his young life @ 28 'No reserve, No retreat, No regret!' Guess who banished wibbly wobbly indecision!? What a confidence!! The life that God has called you to invites significance!! But in doing so requires that we'll die to ourselves and live to the fullness of God's plan revealed in our moment-by-moment living!

Without this we will live out our days plagued with the pain of decisions unmade and greatness undone. Contrary to the devil's lie, there is nothing easy about laziness. It turns out to be the hardest taskmaster of all. The most troubled person in the world is often the one whose highest aim was to avoid trouble.

There is no use denying that life in the real world makes demands of us, some of which are difficult. If we are to make any worthwhile progress, we must deal with our daily decisions straightforwardly. If they seem difficult this morning, they will seem even more so this afternoon. And by this evening, they may have become practically impossible!!

The question of our commitment to God is hardly a trivial matter. To delay dealing with this issue is dangerous, and perhaps even disastrous. Do we not see the dishonour that is done to God by our pottering-around-procrastination? If it turns out that God is God and that we are indeed His creatures, we will want to have done more than stagger through life in a blurred mist. We will want to have lived, and lived decisively.

Augustine said it like this! "I had two wills: one old, one new; one stupidly fleshly, one spiritual. Their conflict wasted my soul. I was like a sleepy man unable to get up. God convinced me that His words were true, but the only answer I could give was the groggy word: "soon." Surely not this way for you? Holiness is a million choices and solid decision making is critical every step of the way,..." Come on live in Christ's light with the Spirits life surging through your every pore! Read God's word & Do it! Hear God & Do it!
AWAKE TO FULLNESS IN GOD NOW!