Choosing

Choices.  How much of our life is spent making choices? Would it be safe to say the majority of it?  We make choices constantly. We choose our actions and unless we are physically tied up or mentally incapacitated in some manner- drug induced, or unconscious, we are making choices. If I make a choice to do something- all during the time I am doing that something I have the choice to remain doing it or to stop doing it. There are certain situations you have to see through once you begin them, without any opportunity to get out of them. You make the choice to ride a rollercoaster and you can't decide midway to simply stop, it's out of your control, you have no ability to stop, short of unbuckling your safety restraints and jumping to your death- very counterproductive, unless you are seeking death.  Most things we do we have the choice of doing or not doing them, stopping them or continuing them once we start. Even our employment, we can walk away from any job we have, the consequences must be faced for the choices we make, but they are ours to make. Marriage, people choose to remain or they don't. Parenthood, people choose to raise their kids or they abandon them. As children our choices are more limited by our parents and other adults, and yet many children rebel even then, choosing to do so. From the moment we wake up we begin making choices, even subconsciously, by rote, not every choice demands prior thinking. We *just* do a lot of things, but they are the result of choosing to do them.

We choose to believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior, and when we choose this we choose still further what kind of relationship we are going to have stemming from that choice. Some people stop right there, they believe and that's the end for them. Others choose to make it their life's work believing, and still others choose many varying degrees of relationship. We are given instructions by our Savior, many instructions and we can choose to ignore them all or pick and choose the ones we desire to follow, or to follow them all, we choose.

Our choosing only stops when we stop living.

Jesus says-

Joh 14:21  He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

Joh 14:22  Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?

Joh 14:23  Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

Does it get any plainer that this? He that hath my commandments and keeps them- he loves me.

So you say you love Jesus, do you keep His commandments, His words?

If you are not choosing to keep His commandments then you do not love Him, not really, you are just playing at loving Him. You've made a game of loving Him, but your heart is not in it and He knows this. We have a gauge to look at- are we keeping His commandments? If we answer no, then we have to comprehend that we might not really love Him.  If we answer no, but we desire to keep His commandments only to fall short of doing so, then we ARE keeping His commandments spiritually, only our flesh is weak. If we stop striving to overcome the flesh then we are not seeking to keep His commandments. And for those who love to announce we can't strive to do anything… how do they explain this--

Heb 12:4  Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.

Luk_13:24  Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.

Rom_15:30  Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me

Striving against sin.

Striving to enter in at the strait gate.

Striving together in prayer.

These are all acceptable and encouraged forms of striving.

And if we are striving against sin, then we are striving to keep the commandments because sin is a transgression of those commandments.

Joh 14:21  He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

Joh 14:22  Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?

Joh 14:23  Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

We have Jesus' commandments and we keep them to the best of our ability through His grace. We love our Savior and in loving our Savior, we are loved by the Father God, we are loved by Jesus, and HE WILL MANIFEST HIMSELF TO US!

How?

If we LOVE JESUS we KEEP His words, we LIVE as He instructs us to live and He's given us A LOT of instruction. We live as He instructs and the FATHER GOD loves us and they BOTH will come to us, living with us! 

This is a spiritual union and it's very REAL.

We must choose with our minds to obey our Savior, our Creator, our Gods. We must choose to keep the sayings of our Savior and this mean studying those sayings, studying all that He has given us to study so we may truly know His will.  We want Jesus to manifest Himself to us, we want Jesus real in our lives and we know this is possible.  Jesus didn't say don't worry about keeping my commandments, I'll still manifest myself to you.  Where do you find those words? I can't find them. Jesus said HE THAT HATH-  we have to have HIS COMMANDMENTS, we have to have his WORDS and not only did he say we that have them, He said AND KEEPETH THEM.  He did not say NOT TO KEEP His commandments, He did not say not to bother with them, not to worry about them, to ignore them, to forget about them. Jesus wants us to have His commandments and then He wants us to KEEP them!  And the ultimate bottom line of all those commandments are to LOVE GOD and to LOVE EACH OTHER, and love is GOD, love is TRULY SELFLESS.  Selfless!  The selfless sacrifice of God the Son - Jesus Christ is our example. No one earned His sacrifice, quite the opposite. And we must treat ALL others - even our worst enemies, or especially our worst enemies- SELFLESSLY- seeking ONLY their good and nothing less than that!

All through the POWER of God!

All by the love and mercy of our Savior Jesus Christ our Lord now and forever! AMEN.