Bible Reading:
Exodus chapter 20 verses 1 to 18
A New Way of Life?
People decide all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons. Some people resolve that they will stop doing something they have done for years. Others resolve to do something they have not been doing and which they feel they should be doing. It is good for people to try to improve the way they live. It is good to look at our lives and to try to improve how we are. A violent person would do well to be less violent, or, better still, not violent at all. A thief would do well not to steal any more. Liars would do well to stop lying. All sorts of wrongs would be better put right. It is good to look carefully at our lives. It is good to look at our lives and seek to do well. Do you ever think about the way you live? Do you look at how you affect other people with what you do? Do you ever think what God thinks about you?
What is right? How do we decide what to do and what not to do? What standard is there that can be a measure of how we should be? Is it just up to us as people to decide what is right and what is wrong? A person might feel that it is all right to steal a little from people who can afford the loss. They decide a wealthy person can afford it so they help themselves to a little of what that person has.
What if a thousand people with that standard came to that wealthy person?
The person would have nothing left! How would the thief feel, now rich from all his stealing, if someone robbed him? If standards are just for individual people to decide then there is chaos and lawlessness. Would a thief's' New Years resolution be acceptable if he decided he would not steal on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, but on the other days he would rob all he could? The thief might feel good about the change but how would you feel if you met him on a Tuesday? He might argue that his firm belief was that it was right to rob people-never mind how the rest of society felt.
There is an absolute standard. A standard that is set in stone for all people in all ages. The truth of the Bible is that there is an absolute standard set. How we live is not left for each individual person to decide. A standard has been set which brings peace and harmony to every society that lives by it. What standard is it? The standard of The Law of God. How many places is Gods Law kept perfectly?
Are New Years Resolutions kept? How many people are able to keep their New Years Resolutions? How many people started out on New Years Day with the idea they were going to be different from that day forward? How many people said they would save money? Or they would stop smoking? Or they would stop drinking too much alcohol? Or they would eat less or better things? Or they would keep to the speed limit when they drove their cars? Or they would do all their homework first every evening? Or they would not be disrespectful to their parents? Or they would not lose their tempers? Or they would not have rows? Yet they are still spending every penny they get, smoking and drinking and eating all the wrong things and speeding in their cars and cheeking their parents and losing their tempers and having rows and it is only a couple of weeks since new year!
Decide and change? Deciding to change cannot change what we are at all. There was once an advertisement on the television in which a number of different people said what they wanted to be. There was a man who wanted to be rich, a woman who wanted to be somewhere else and a little boy at the end who said he wanted to be a slug. Could those people decide to be those different things and just be them because they decided? Could a little boy turn himself into a slug just because he wanted to be a slug? The Lord Jesus said in Matthew 6:27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? The prophet Jeremiah spoke on the same theme in Jeremiah 13:23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil. We can change what we do, sometimes, but we cannot change what we are. We cannot change the fact that we are rebellious sinners who want nothing more than to go on in sin and in our own way.
Is a person able to "Decide for Christ" as is so often suggested by well-meaning advisors? Some people think that becoming a Christian is something they decide. They think a person makes a decision and from then onward that person is a Christian. They make becoming a Christian just like a New Years resolution.
God changes people. What a person needs to become a Christian is for God to do the changing. We cannot change ourselves but God can. We do not have the power but God does. John 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: God gives people the power or the right to be His children. He changes people from being His enemies, not just to being His friends, but also to being His adopted children! Nobody can just decide to be a child of God. God has to change people first. Once adopted then in The Family of God for ever! What a change!
What hope is there? If I cannot do it for myself, then what hope is there? There is every hope because God is very merciful and gracious. Ask Him to change you and He will. You need to know what you are. The Bible tells you that you have broken Gods Law and fallen short of His standard. The Bible tells you that God is therefore angry with you and you are today under His wrath and the prospect of being cast into hell at any moment. The Bible also says that The Lord Jesus saves sinners and that is good news for us all.
