Choose Life

There is a surprising Bible passage uttered by the Lord God to the Children of Israel. DT 30:19

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants.

It is surprising because many of us assume that all people will naturally choose life without requiring God to warn them. But, it is not so. It is a truism's that millions of people choose death, curses and evil on a daily basis.

I was trained in public universities by secular humanist professors who were, as a rule, committed to the notion that all people are born good, pure and innocent. So, I naturally began to think that way as well.

The Bible gives us a different picture entirely. It paints us as deceitful broken and prone to selfishness and evil. Who is correct, Carl Rogers or Moses? What have we learned from life and counseling?

For a long time I struggled with the paradox of secular humanistic ideas in a fallen world. Finally, I was informed by my personal experience and biblical study the Moses was right and Carl Rogers was wrong. Over the last forty or so years I have struggled unsuccessfully to be perfect like I was taught and I have worked with thousands of people whose commitment to purity, peace and love was sabotaged by pride, prejudice and power.

The heart is wicked, deceitful and self defeating. That is why we need the daily, moment by moment salvation of Jesus Christ. Moses lays it out this way on the next verse. We can choose life

by loving the LORD your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.

Life comes from:

1. Loving God
2. Obeying God's voice on a daily basis.
3. Holding fast to Him because He is our salvation.

Gary Sweeten