Christians have decisions to make all the time. That is just how God made man: to be able to make choices.

This is seen in some of the last words of Joshua one of the leaders of God’s people in the Old Testament. “And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15). God wants man to obey him because man wants to do it; God does not force man to follow him.

By being able to make choices, man determines his own destiny. God has given us the Bible to give us the proper directions to obtain eternal life and the only sacrifice that can remove our sins. The directions given by God are not negotiable; they have to be followed as given. Some have a problem with that because they want to do things their own way.

In the Old Testament, after the death of Solomon, his son Rehoboam made decisions that caused a revolt resulting in a divided kingdom — Israel and Judea. As the king of Israel, Jeroboam wanted to keep God’s people from going back to Jerusalem to worship. He was afraid they would stay, so he set up idols to be worshiped, appointed inferior men to serve as priests  and changed the day that worship was to be done (1 Kings 12). He wanted to do things his own way, and because of this, evil was brought upon his kingdom (1 Kings 14). He made the wrong decisions.

While making decisions, Christians sometimes have difficulties because the culture of the times continually changes. Pressure to accept “man’s ideas” may make doing what God wants done seem wrong, but doing what God says is never wrong. God has told us in the Bible that some things are wrong, and that settles the question.

Paul wrote in the book of Romans about how some had failed to glorify God and had become vain in their imaginations, choosing to worship the creature rather than the creator. “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.

“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them” (Romans 1:20 – 32).  

God loves all men, but he does not love their sinful ways. Men may say that immorality is not wrong anymore, but the true Christian will know that God’s word is right, and the things God says are sinful are just that, and sin will lead to souls being lost.

When faced with the decision of following God’s way or man’s, the Bible shows us what we should do. When Peter and John were told not to preach about Christ anymore, their answer was, “Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, ‘We ought to obey God rather than men’” (Acts 5:29).

Popularity was not their objective, obedience to God was — and it should be our objective today.