By Chris WittsWednesday 19 Apr 2023Morning Devotions with Chris WittsFaithReading Time: 1 minute
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Transcript:
If you’re with me yesterday morning, I opened up the topic of making the right choices. And I said, we certainly can make wrong choices, wrong decisions and have to live with them. The Bible, particularly in proverbs, gives some really good idea. It talks a bit about war in proverbs. I mean, you’d be crazy, I guess, to go to any battle or war if you didn’t have a plan.
(Making the Right Choices – Part 1)
So imagine having all the troops lined up ready for the battle, and someone says, OK, boss, what’s the plan? Well, I don’t know. We’ll just wing it. Of course, that just doesn’t happen. Armies have planned strategies, and they’ve had lots of advice. That’s why there are books called, like ‘The Art of War’. Sports teams have plans before they play. And I guess you’d be crazy not to have a plan in whatever you’re doing. It involves thinking about the goal, what you’re trying to do, getting advice and taking those steps to accomplish the goal. So it’s all about using your imagination.
So we need to begin with the human side and say, “yes we do need to plan”.
Now some people say it’s unspiritual to plan, but Proverbs says, that’s nonsense. Some people say we need to do certain exercises to find God’s will. But proverbs and the Bible is so great because it just is full of common sense. It says, use your brain, get good advice, make good decisions.
But of course, there’s more to this than just us setting plans. We need to look at God’s role. And here again in Proverbs 16, it says to human beings belong the plans of the heart. But from the Lord come the proper answer of the tongue. People may think all their ways are pure, but their motives are weighed by the Lord. That’s Proverbs 16, 1 to 10. And what that means is that we can plan all we like, But God may have something different in mind. Have you ever had that experience where you’ve planned something and then you discover that God actually says something different to you? God can override. You can plan all you want. God wants you to say or do something different. You need to obey that.
So it says that God sees something completely different than we do. When I first make a decision, I think I’m being objective, rational. But I’m convinced that I might not have made the right decision because it says people may think all their ways are pure. And the reality is, of course, that we’re all sinners, that we were born in sin. And sometimes we can deceive ourselves, and we think we’re deceiving God. Mixed motives, I think, is the words we use that we we’re all full of mixed motives.
Martin Lloyd Jones from years ago said that our problem isn’t so much the small s sins, but the capital sin. We all have sinful hearts. And so, we know that in Proverbs 16:9 it says in their hearts, human beings plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps. Proverbs 19, many of the plans in the human heart, but it’s the Lord’s purpose that prevails.
So we know there that God can overrule. Proverbs 16:4 – The Lord works out everything to its proper end.
Here’s what this means. Of course, God is in control of everything we do. And now I often think about Joseph from the Old Testament, from the book of Genesis. Here was Joseph who was just treated terribly. He was just abandoned by his family, unjustly treated and left to die. But you know what he said years later and we read this in Genesis 50 verse 20 – “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good. Why? To accomplish what is now being done. The saving of many lives.” And the story of Joseph is quite a remarkable story.
So a question you might think of is, ‘Am I free to make my own choice?’ Yes. Does my choice matter? Yes, it does. But God is sovereign, and God actually determines in the end how things are going to turn out.
So if your decisions don’t matter, then you may as well stay in bed all day because what’s the use of getting out of bed? But if your decisions determine everything, then of course, you are determined to do the right thing and to understand your role and to understand God’s role because God is significant. God is in charge.
Ask God for his will, and then he will allow all these things to work together. That’s what the Bible says. God uses these decisions so that His will can be done.
Let’s Pray
Thank you Lord, we can learn so much about making decisions and choices as we trust you. And we want to do that today. Amen.