"It's not that bad, it's only one time, don't worry it's just a little sin and afterwards you can just ask for forgiveness." These are just somethings that might run through our minds when we are faced with tough choices, I like to call it the good old battle between flesh and spirit. I know me personally there's sometimes I just want to do what I want or what the world tells me I should do. It's a battle that we face but it's a battle we have to decide which side we are on. To put it plain and simple we chose God's ways or our flesh's ways. I wrote a few days back that we need to decide who we are living our day for and today I want to go a little more into that. It's a great thing to decide each morning who we are living our day for but after read Daniel chapter 3 the Lord put on my heart that we need to remember who we are living our lives for. This is a tough thing because when we make the choice to follow Jesus Christ we are making the choice to live a life that isn't what the world would say is fun and it's a life that we have to constantly deny our flesh.
In Daniel chapter 3 we see three guys, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego make one of the gnarliest stands ever. To sum it up the king tells them they need to worship the gold statue he made or die and they said no. Now I know that seems like the Sunday school version but what was so gnarly to me in this chapter is their response to the king. The king tells them to worship, they say no and then he gives them one more chance and tells them that there's no way any god could save them from the fiery furnace, they still said no. As these guys were staring death in the face they gave his the most BA answer ever, to paraphraze it they told him their God can save them but even if he didn't they still won't worship the statue because they will only worship God.(Daniel 3: 16-18) Talk about an instant conviction. I see these three guys put their lives on the line just to stand up for what they believe in and then I remember the time when I avoided a conversation about religion so I wouldn't be labeled the "Crazy Christian guy". After reading this I realize that I need to be more like these guys. Not because they are in the Bible but because I made the same commitment they did. I've made the choice to serve God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength. I need to not care about what the world, friends, and co-workers think about me and my relationship with God. Yeah I know it might suck, we might get excluded, we might need new friends, and we will have to make choices that will cause us to deny our flesh. But just as the Lord blessed these three guys he will bless you if you make a stand to live your live for the Lord. Don't forget this though, God might not come through the way we want him to but just like the three we need to know that he will always be there for us and that even though he might not work things out the way we plan he's still worth it! (He died so we can have eternal life)
So my prayer is that we take a stand to live our lives for God. I pray that God will give us the strength to deny our flesh and chose his ways. I pray that we will have the courage to honor God no matter how bad or ugly the situations in our lives get. Remember this, God has control over everything and he is always on your side and he's just a conversation away.
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