"Easing the Pain...of 'Sunday School-less Sunday' "

I sure miss teaching my Sunday School class!! I miss the MEN, I miss TEACHING...especially on Sundays, like today!! THIS Sunday is tough because I heard from some of the guys in my class after sending out my regular letter to them...I really miss them, and they miss me. COVID-19 has knocked out just about everything in my church except the Pastor's Sunday morning services and the Prayer Meeting he leads. Anyway, my friend Pastor Frank Espinal asked me to write something for his "Christ-Centered Community Church" Newsletter and I don't know if he'll ever PRINT, it but I thought I'd put it HERE.  It's my way of "Easing the Pain of Sunday School-less Sunday" today!!

Our Choices Matter to the Lord! By Chet Jelinski

If you’ve started to read this far, after a title like that, you are more than likely someone who has already made “The” most important decision anyone can ever make; to be saved. Confronted with the challenge “Choose this day who you will serve,” you have chosen to serve GOD and not the devil, or yourself. Good for you! You are a Christian, you have put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as being your ONLY Savior, you want to now live for Him and please Him with your life.  And, while it’s true that none of us can choose to live for Him unless HE first chooses US, still YOU had to “flee the wrath to come,” YOU had to choose to “pick up your cross and follow Him,” YOU had to decide to obey and glorify Him now. Praise God for your good choices!!

But now, I’m going to surprise you.

The choice we have made, to follow Christ and live for Him, is a bit like GOING ON A DIET…in this sense. 

Hear me out, please.  Look, I can say to my wife “I’ve decided to go on a diet” but if my subsequent decisions, day-by-day, don’t REINFORCE that declaration then I am not REALLY dieting.  If I don’t deliberately refrain from eating smaller portions of food, if I don’t CHOOSE to exercise more, if I don’t DENY MYSELF cake or ice cream when I know I should deny myself, well, my “small” decisions day-by-day NEGATE the “big” decision to diet that I claimed to make in the first place. Choosing to diet is a DAILY discipline, you see. It’s not just “one shot.” Just like choosing to follow Christ is a daily commitment.  Yes, we “make a decision” for Christ to trust in His shed blood for salvation, but when it comes to living for Him there are many “decisions” (plural) we’ll have to make until He calls us Home to Heaven.

And here’s how this analogy applies to obeying the Lord.

·         The Bible, God’s Word, is our “Instruction Manual” and He wants us to choose to read it DAILY so that we may grow in Holiness.  If we choose NOT to read it, well, we are NOT really living for Him.  His Word is like spiritual food that we should NEVER choose to diet from!

·         God instructs us in Scripture CONSTANTLY to pray to Him, but if we don’t choose to set time aside to “enter our closet” and “pray without ceasing,” we really are choosing NOT to live for Him.  Sometimes that means choosing whether to watch TV, or go on Facebook, or to PRAY.

·         If we’re Single, God wants us to choose ONLY a fellow Believer as a spouse, (and the Bible says a lot about the FRIENDS we should be closest to, as well)! Choose not to obey Him? Then we are choosing NOT to live for Him, regardless of what we think or say and whether we know it or not.

·         If we’re married and choosing to follow the WORLD’S ever-changing standards of marriage roles, and raising children, we are living for this world and choosing NOT to live for the Lord! If we choose to get divorced without Scriptural warrant, we are choosing the world’s way, not God’s.

·         The Scriptures say we should “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness” but if we choose to have WORLDLY priorities (merely enriching ourselves) in our earthly labors and callings, we are, in reality, choosing NOT to live for Him.  We cannot serve God and mammon!

I could go on and on, but I trust you get the point.  And if we’re truly saved, thank God we can’t lose our SALVATION when we fail to make God-honoring choices…but we can lose our assurance and blow our testimony! Most importantly, we grieve our Savior’s heart when our day-by-day decisions go AGAINST His Word.

He has said that if we love Him, we will keep His commandments.  We have to CHOOSE to ask Him for wisdom to see where we fall short, and to seek grace to do better.  Remember, to be his disciple requires daily discipline.

Yet, I would be remiss if I didn’t say THIS: never forget that “without Him, we can do nothing” and we must NOT choose to try to live the Christian life on our own “strength.” It won’t work!  We might be able to stick to a DIET on our own strength, but we can’t live for the LORD in our own power!  If the Lord reveals to us that we’ve sinned in these areas, let us not be like Adam and Eve who RAN from him but let us run TO Him, ask for forgiveness and seek grace to make better choices in the future.

In closing, here’s a little poem I wrote and by the way, I need to pledge to MY wife that I’ll go on a diet!

“Our choices matter to the Lord,

Not just the choice that’s first,

That first “initial burst”…

But day-by-day, we reinforce

To leave The Way, or stay the course

with JESUS as our constant Source

of strength, we’ll choose HIS ways…

to serve Him all our days!

AMEN.