Deuteronomy 30:15-20 (NIV): See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.
But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.
This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Our Lord is a very black and white God. Today’s people prefer to choose from an array of grays that let them be the masters of their own lives by choosing the varying shades, smorgasbord style, and weaving a picture that is to their own taste. But in the eternal realm, the spiritual realm, that’s not the way things work at all. God is holy: entirely pure and righteous and just. He is pure light, without the smallest atom of darkness. And anyone who would live with Him, be in His presence forever must have a heart that is also pure and righteous and just, with no darkness. God does not judge on a sliding scale; He does not measure the amount of darkness in a heart to see if it is within acceptable limits. That is why the decisions He gives to His people seem to be so stark. Choose either death or life – if you choose 90% life, but want to keep 10% death, your whole life will be tainted with death, and you will die. Choose either light or darkness – if you choose 90% light, but want to keep 10% darkness, all of your light will be tainted with darkness, and you will not be in the light. Choose God’s kingdom or the kingdom of the world – if you choose to live 90% in God’s kingdom, but keep a 10% foothold in the kingdom of the world, to serve it, your kingdom life will be tainted by worldly attitudes, thought processes, and actions, and you cannot live in the kingdom. It must be 100% life, or it is death. It must be 100% light, or it is darkness. It must be 100% God’s kingdom, or it is the kingdom of the world. It’s entirely our choice. We must choose wisely.
Father, I choose life; I choose light; I choose Your kingdom. I pray that ALL of Your people everywhere see that they must choose, and that they will choose wisely. Amen.